MacOS – How to turn off the screen without sleep on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar?

macosscreentouch-bar

Is there any shortcut for it?

I tried Control + Shift + Touch ID, which didn't work.

Best Answer

There are two methods I will explain.

1. Use the 'Lock display' touch bar shortcut

In System Preferences -> Keyboard settings, click 'Customise Touch Bar'. There is a shortcut 'Screen Lock' which you can use to lock the display, as well as 'Sleep' and 'Screen Saver' shortcuts which have their own respective functions.

2. Leave computer open, but screen turned off

If you need to turn off the display, without actually sending the computer to sleep, simply turn the brightness down to the minimum.
On an MacBook Pro (Touch Bar) leave brightness at lowest (with slider as left as it can go)

If you're comfortable with the terminal, try $ caffeinate -dimsu -p <process-id> for leaving a long process running without sleeping computer, where <process-id> is the PID for the process (you can look this up in Activity Monitor)