Redeem now - To keep your iPhone's brightness from changing, turn off Auto-Brightness and Night Shift.
- You can then change your iPhone's brightness manually in Control Center or Settings.
- Overheating can make your iPhone auto-dim even with Auto-Brightness and Night Shift turned off.
If your iPhone is up-to-date, chances are your phone's brightness sometimes changes automatically. This can be due to Auto-Brightness – a feature that adjusts your screen's brightness based on how much light is around you so you can see better.
Night Shift, another feature, changes your iPhone's color and brightness during specified times, typically from sunset to sunrise. This helps you fall asleep after looking at your phone.
If your iPhone brightness keeps changing at inappropriate times because of these features, you can turn them off and adjust brightness manually. Here's how.
How to turn off Auto-Brightness on your iPhone
To turn off Auto-Brightness, a sensor which changes brightness depending on light conditions, follow these steps:
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Display & Text Size.
4. Scroll to the bottom and tap the Auto-Brightness toggle to flip it to the left, so it turns gray.
How to turn off Night Shift on your iPhone
To turn off Night Shift, a default iPhone feature that automatically changes the colors of your screen for less strain on your eyes (particularly at night) follow these steps:
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Display & Brightness.
3. Tap Night Shift.
4. Tap the toggle for Scheduled to flip it to the left, so it turns gray.
How to change brightness manually on your iPhone
There are two ways to change the brightness manually on an iPhone if you've turned off Auto-Brightness and Night Shift.
From Control Center:
1. Swipe down from the top right-hand corner of your screen on an iPhone X or newer (or up from the bottom of your screen on an earlier iPhone model).
2. Change the brightness by sliding your finger up and down on the sun icon.
Quick tip: To turn Night Shift on, press and hold the sun icon, and tap the Night Shift icon in the bottom center.
From Settings:
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Display & Brightness.
3. Adjust the Brightness slider to your desired brightness settings.
Why does my iPhone screen keep dimming with Auto-Brightness off?
When you find that your iPhone is still dimming automatically, even though you've turned off Auto-Brightness and Night Shift, it could be because it's overheating.
This is a built-in feature by Apple that protects the phone's internal components from heat damage – brightness contributes to heat generation after all. You need to look into why the iPhone is getting hot and fix it to stop the dimming.
Quick tip: If your iPhone gets too hot during a particular graphics-intensive activity, such as streaming HD video or playing a game, stop what you're doing and let the phone cool off for a bit.
Meira Gebel Meira Gebel is a freelance reporter based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about business, culture, and technology for Insider. Her work has been featured in Digital Trends, Willamette Week, USA Today, and more. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and San Francisco State University. Feel free to reach out to her on Twitter, where she can be found most of the time, @MeiraGebel. Read more Read less William Antonelli Tech Reporter for Insider Reviews William Antonelli (he/she/they) is a writer, editor, and organizer based in New York City. As a founding member of the Reference team, he helped grow Tech Reference (now part of Insider Reviews) from humble beginnings into a juggernaut that attracts over 20 million visits a month. Outside of Insider, his writing has appeared in publications like Polygon, The Outline, Kotaku, and more. He's also a go-to source for tech analysis on channels like Newsy, Cheddar, and NewsNation. You can find him on Twitter @DubsRewatcher, or reach him by email at wantonelli@businessinsider.com. Read more Read lessncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSoqWeq6Oeu7S1w56pZ5ufonyowcidnKxnpJqwqXvWobBmnJ%2BawG652GaZq6GXncGvsdKsZKSdlaV6pLTAp56ippditrG0zqec