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Keyboard brightness multimedia keys support #2331

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Keyboard brightness multimedia keys support #2331

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satyapraneet63
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I use a 2019 macbook air and the keyboard keys for backlight do not work out of the box. Made a issues post and a discussion on it and got some feedback.
Adding my commit to the default media.conf could help with the out of the box experience.

Possible Issues:

my keyboard uses apple::kbd_backlight call. I have seen another person have a smc::kbd_backlight call. We could make the vendor into a variable and pass into it, but I do not know how to call it.

References:

#2291
#1779

@marcusholmgren
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I have a MacBook Pro 15" model A1707

brightnessctl -l
Device 'spi::kbd_backlight' of class 'leds':
       Current brightnesss: 255 (100%)
       Max brightness: 255

Set the keyboard backlight to 100%

brightnessctl -d 'spi::kbd_backlight' set 100%

@satyapraneet63
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Damn. I can see why this is not a built-in feature. Changes from laptop to laptop

@hoblin
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hoblin commented Oct 11, 2025

On Intel MBP 2020 with touchbar, I use this:

# Keyboard backlight controls
bindel = ,XF86KbdBrightnessUp, exec, brightnessctl -d ':white:kbd_backlight' set 5%+
bindel = ,XF86KbdBrightnessDown, exec, brightnessctl -d ':white:kbd_backlight' set 5%-

@barrybro
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On my 2015 MBP, the following code works for me.
The key is that for me the device name is smc::kbd_backlight

#Laptop multimedia keys for keyboard brightness (with OSD)
$keysswayosd = $osdclient --custom-progress=$(awk "BEGIN {print $(brightnessctl --device=smc::kbd_backlight get)/255}") --custom-icon=input-keyboard
bindeld = ,XF86KbdBrightnessDown, Keyboard Brightness down, exec, brightnessctl --device=smc::kbd_backlight set 10%- && $keysswayosd
bindeld = ,XF86KbdBrightnessUp, Keyboard Brightness up, exec, brightnessctl --device=smc::kbd_backlight set +10% && $keysswayosd

# Precise 1% multimedia adjustments with Alt modifier
bindeld = ALT, XF86KbdBrightnessDown, Keyboard Brightness down precise, exec, brightnessctl --device=smc::kbd_backlight set 1%- && $keysswayosd
bindeld = ALT, XF86KbdBrightnessUp, Keyboard Brightness up precise, exec, brightnessctl --device=smc::kbd_backlight set +1% && $keysswayosd

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4 participants

@satyapraneet63 @marcusholmgren @hoblin @barrybro
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