Free and open source

Brightness and colour for every monitor, from Windows.

Your monitor's settings live behind a menu you drive with a small joystick on the back. MonitorControl puts them in a window, including your laptop screen.

Download for Windows View source

One file. No installer, no account, no telemetry. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.

The MonitorControl window. A sidebar lists the connected displays. The main area shows brightness, contrast, input source and volume for the selected display. — Every display in one list, named by where it sits on your desk.

What it does

MonitorControl uses DDC/CI, a control channel that already runs through your video cable. Laptop screens have no such channel, so those go through the Windows backlight instead.

The controls your display really has

Brightness, contrast, colour temperature, RGB gains, sharpness, saturation, gamma, input source, volume, scaling and picture mode. Read from the hardware, so you only see what your panel actually supports.

Presets that fit any monitor

Built-in presets say what they want, such as brightness at 45% or a white point near 6500 K. Each display gets the closest setting it can do, so the same preset works on a laptop and on a gaming monitor.

Every display at once

One slider moves every screen that has the same control. Compare shows only the settings that actually differ, and matches them in one click.

Set it and forget it

Apply a preset on a schedule or at start-up. Keyboard shortcuts for brightness that work anywhere. Start with Windows, straight to the tray.

One click from the tray

A small panel with brightness for every display and your first few presets, without opening the main window.

Tools for stubborn hardware

Deep scan reads all 256 control codes and writes nothing. Learn a setting works out what an unnamed control does by watching what changes when you press a button on the display.

Made for eyes, not just for monitors

Turning the brightness down is rarely the whole answer. Each preset changes several settings together and says when to use it.

Reading and documents. Moderate brightness, a warmer white point, and less sharpening so letter edges stop shimmering.
Evening wind-down. Low output and a warm white point, so the screen stops looking like daylight.
Dark room. As dim as the panel goes while text stays readable. This helps most on OLED, where a bright panel against a black background is the hardest thing to look at.
Maximum legibility. Contrast at its limit for the cleanest separation between text and background, without brightness that stings.
Bright office, photo and design, film, gaming, presenting, and any preset you save yourself.

The presets page, showing cards for reading, bright office, evening wind-down and dark room, each with a short description and an Apply button.

Let an assistant handle it

MonitorControl is also a Model Context Protocol server. Point an MCP client at the same file and an assistant can read and change your displays.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "monitorcontrol": {
      "command": "C:\\Tools\\MonitorControl\\MonitorControl.exe",
      "args": ["--mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Nine tools. Controls are addressed by what they mean rather than by raw code, so the same instruction works on different hardware.

Tool	What it does
`list_displays`	Every connected display, its id, and which controls it has
`get_display`	Full detail for one display, including every control and its range
`get_control` `set_control`	Read or change one control by name or raw code
`set_brightness`	Set brightness as a percentage, on all displays or one
`list_presets` `apply_preset`	Find and apply presets
`rescan_displays`	Look again after plugging something in
`get_diagnostics`	Hardware report, with serial numbers left out

The server never touches the network. It runs over a local pipe and only starts when your client asks for it. Write access is a switch you control. Power controls are off by default, so an assistant cannot switch off the screen you are reading.

Read the MCP reference

Every setting, with a reason

Theme, accent, text size and spacing. Timing for slow displays. Safety switches. Where your data lives. Changes apply and save as you make them, so there is no Save button to forget.

The settings page, showing theme, accent, text size and density with a short explanation under each one. — An explanation under every option.

The automation page, showing a schedule for applying presets at set times, start-up behaviour, and keyboard shortcuts. — Schedules, start-up behaviour and shortcuts.

What it does not do

An app that changes your screen brightness has no reason to phone home.

No network access

No telemetry, no analytics, no account, no update check. There is no network code in the app at all.

Six files, all yours

Settings, presets, labels, wake methods, a cache and logs. All under your own profile, listed inside the app, with a button to open the folder. Serial numbers are hashed and never stored in the clear.

Nothing left behind

No service, no driver, no background program you did not ask for. Portable mode keeps everything next to the app.

On safety. Display firmware is undocumented, and a wrong value sent to an unknown control can reset a panel or switch it off. So the app never writes while exploring, unknown codes stay read only until you identify them yourself, values are never guessed, and every change is read back from the hardware before the app says it worked.

Get it

Download and run. Windows will warn about an unknown publisher because the build is not signed. The source is here if you would rather build it yourself.

Download for Windows Build from source

If a display does not respond

Nearly always, DDC/CI is switched off in the display's own menu, because many makers ship it that way. Look for DDC/CI, DDC or Monitor Control under Settings, System or Others. If that is not it, close any utility from the monitor's maker, since only one program can hold the channel at a time, and try a direct cable rather than an adapter. More troubleshooting