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How-To: Reduce iPhone screen brightness beyond what’s possible in Control Center or Display & Brightness settings

Reduce Screen Brightness No Jailbreak Required

My iPhone 6s is not jailbroken, but there are still a couple of tricks that I employ that make it closer to that of a jailbroken phone. For example, getting rid of animations — a feat normally reserved for users willing to jailbreak — is now available to all iOS 9 users via the handy SpringBoard animations glitch.

Another trick, one that I haven’t been shy about sharing in the past, involves reducing iPhone screen brightness beyond levels that are possible with the standard brightness slider controls. Like the animations glitch, this too uses iOS’ deep accessibility features to pull off the job. If you’re someone who likes to use an iPhone or iPad at night, then your eyes will thank you for this trick.

The steps involved don’t rely on a glitch or tricky timing like the animations glitch did. In fact, it should be far easier to pull the screen brightness reduction off, because it relies on a few simple settings that anyone can adjust.

How to dim your iPhone’s screen beyond its lowest brightness level

  • Open Settings → General → Accessibility.
  • Tap the Zoom section, and enable the Zoom switch. You should now see a Window Zoom overlay on top of the screen.
  • Perform a three-finger triple-tap on the screen to access an additional overlay with zoom controls.
  • Tap Full Screen Zoom, and use the slider at the bottom of the overlay to zoom all the way out if necessary.
  • Tap Choose Filter and select Low Light.
  • Go back to the main Accessibility section of the Settings app, and scroll down and select Accessibility Shortcut.
  • Tap Zoom for the Accessibility shortcut to assign a three finger-tap to the Zoom setting.
  • Triple-press the Home button to quickly switch between brightness.

With the zoom set up with a low light filter, it’s possible to reduce screen brightness on demand using a simple triple-press of the Home button. I use this feature all of the time when I’m on my iPhone or iPad when I probably should be sleeping.

Video walkthrough

By using this trick, you can reduce the iPhone’s screen brightness far beyond what’s possible with the normal brightness sliders available in Control Center or Settings. Watch the video above to see the differences and visual how-to.

Dim iPhone Screen No Jailbreak Required

This trick results in a measurable reduction in screen brightness

Jailbreak users have been able to take advantage of numerous jailbreak tweaks to change the brightness of their iPhone’s display for years, but this trick allows you to do so on a stock iPhone or iPad.

This trick was first brought to my attention by fellow YouTuber Quinn Nelson of SnazzyLabs. Like the glitch that allows you to disable animations, using the screen dimming trick allows my stock iPhone to feel much more like a jailbroken iPhone.

Have you tried reducing your screen brightness using this trick? Do you think it will make using your iPhone in dark settings a lot easier?

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Comments

  1. bloodymerzkizzoid - 8 years ago

    Thanks a lot.

    • example75366 - 7 years ago

      I have another way of reducing brightness:

      Settings –> general –> accessibility –> display accommodations –> reduce white point

      You can choose how much you want to reduce brightness :)
      I don’t know which update did it come with.

  2. el3v3nty - 8 years ago

    NOW THIS!!! (more emphasis … so more !!! !!!)
    This is why i come to 9to5mac.com

    easy tutorials and VERY useful! My eyes thank you.

  3. therazorpit - 8 years ago

    Never understood why Apple won’t allow us to make the display dimmer than the default. Silly that you have to go through this to be able to do it.

  4. Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

    This is better than the LCD version of Night Mode with Yellow Piss

    • totencough - 8 years ago

      I’ve been using it for a while and, yes, it is better in that it keeps colors normal (although very faded and washed out). However, it doesn’t provide the same health benefits as removing the blue from the screen. I’ve been using Flux and was on the 9.3 beta, the experience is not the same with this trick, but this trick does help to not have so much light at night.

      • Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

        I only felt true to the story of Health-like benefits, when using an AMOLED screen as-well-as the Red-colour it covers. The AMOLED screens still provides highest accuracy of colours in true low brightness.

  5. Apaches911 - 8 years ago

    very cool. thanks!

  6. Jake Becker - 8 years ago

    The Zoom thing worked until 9.2 for me, and then it started keeping the zoom along with being dim. :(

  7. totencough - 8 years ago

    Been using this for a while and am excited to use it soon with nightshift as well.

  8. Scott (@ScooterComputer) - 8 years ago

    Great tip! Have been looking for a better “night” mode for my original iPad, but the trick doesn’t work that far back.

    Did it on my iPhone 5s on iOS 8.3 tho, and got a hard lockup after being triggered a few times. (Seems to be working better after the forced reboot however.)

  9. David Halter - 8 years ago

    This is my number one feature request from Apple, and all this time it’s just been a triple tap away!

  10. Matt - 8 years ago

    Great tip. Thanks!

  11. r00fus1 - 8 years ago

    I’ve been doing this for over a year.
    Absolutely needed if my iPhone was going to pass muster as a “spouse-approved” nightstand device.

  12. Shyuan - 8 years ago

    Much appreciated!

  13. sword2pen - 8 years ago

    Neat trick there! Cheers :)

  14. davidt4n - 8 years ago

    My eyes is damn sensitive to those brightness and thanks a lot. Finally solve the problem that I think Apple should update the hardware or software part to make the brightness further down. Screen looks more blue than yellowish.

  15. Norton Chia (@nchia) - 8 years ago

    Only annoying thing for me is the “Zoom Enabled” and “Zoom Disabled” popping up when I toggle it. Can anyone advise how to suppress this?

  16. ccarvajal84 - 8 years ago

    I’ve being years thinking that the minimum bright level was too high for bed, this trick is amazing!!! Thanks so much!

  17. chrishoward - 8 years ago

    Been using this on my iPad for a few months and it’s seriously awesome.

  18. Matthew Islam - 8 years ago

    Thank you so much.

  19. atimoda - 8 years ago

    Wow, suddently the experience of using the iphone got SO much better… I hope they implement this option in the next version…

  20. saresu - 7 years ago

    Outstanding! It works for iPad. You just have to resize the small window to fit the whole screen. Thank you so much!

  21. ProDigit (@ProDigit80) - 7 years ago

    Works on Ipad Mini 2 as well!
    Thank you so much!
    You saved me $2.99 as an app in the appstore!

  22. saifchowdhury1997 - 7 years ago

    Thanks a lot…I was looking for it so many times…and sometimes I wanted to buy a paid app for dimming my iphone’s brightness…after all I got this trick…and it helped me very much…Thanks again. ❤️

  23. Kim Snyder - 7 years ago

    Thanks! This is excellent.

Author

Avatar for Jeff Benjamin Jeff Benjamin

Jeff is the head of video content production for 9to5. He initially joined 9to5Mac in 2016, producing videos, walkthroughs, how-tos, written tutorials, and reviews. He takes pride in explaining things simply, clearly, and concisely. Jeff’s videos have been watched hundreds of millions of times by people seeking to learn more about today’s tech. Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube to catch Jeff’s latest videos.