What is twinkle-tray?

Twinkle Tray is a Windows application that adds brightness controls for external monitors to your system tray, the small area near the clock at the bottom-right corner of the screen. Windows 10 and 11 can adjust brightness on laptop screens, but they have no built-in way to control the brightness of external displays plugged in via HDMI or DisplayPort. This app fills that gap. Once installed, a small icon appears in the system tray. Clicking it opens a panel where you can slide the brightness up or down for each connected monitor individually. The app visually matches your Windows theme and taskbar style, so it looks at home alongside the rest of the system. If you have multiple monitors, they each get their own slider, and you can also normalize them so they all sit at a consistent level relative to each other. Beyond manual adjustments, the app can automatically change brightness based on the time of day or when the computer has been idle for a while. You can also set keyboard shortcuts to raise or lower brightness without opening the panel. For monitors that support DDC/CI (a standard communication protocol many modern monitors include), the app can also adjust contrast and send other display control commands. Installation is available through the project's website, the Microsoft Store, or several Windows package managers including winget, Chocolatey, and Scoop. After installing and running the app, it starts automatically with Windows. There is also a command-line interface for scripting brightness changes, useful if you want to automate adjustments as part of a workflow. Compatibility depends on the monitor and connection type. Most monitors support DDC/CI but it may be disabled by default in the monitor's own menu settings. VGA, DVI, and some docking station connections may not work. The README includes a troubleshooting page for monitors that are not detected.