Laptops are remarkable for their convenience and portability, but sometimes you might want to connect yours to an external monitor for work or to enjoy content on a larger screen. The issue arises when you close your laptop's lid, as Windows typically puts it to sleep, leaving you with an open, unused laptop taking up space on your desk. Thankfully, there's a way to close your laptop lid without putting it to sleep, allowing you to use it with an external monitor seamlessly. Let's look into how you can do this.

Change What Closing the Lid Does from the Control Panel

You can easily change the function your system performs when it detects the lid is closed. Moreover, you can also specify not to sleep only when it is plugged in or on battery power, making it tailor-fit for your requirements.

  1. Open the Start Menu and type 'Control Panel'. Then from the search results, click on the ‘Control Panel’ tile to open it.
  1. Locate and click on ‘Power Options’ from the various settings available in control panel.
  1. On the ‘Power Options’ screen, click on the ‘Choose what closing the lid does’ option situated in the left sidebar of the window.
  1. Locate the 'When I close the lid' option, click on the drop-down menu and select 'Do nothing' from the available options.

    We suggest you set this only when your laptop is 'Plugged in'. If you set it to do nothing, even when on the battery, you may unknowingly deplete battery juice when it is not connected to power. Also, people usually connect to external monitors only when plugged in, so it's the most efficient option for setting 'Do nothing' when the laptop lid is closed.
  1. Finally, click on the ‘Save changes’ button situated in the bottom section of the window to apply the changes immediately.

You can now close the lid of your laptop when connected to an external monitor and use it without any hassle of your PC going to sleep or hibernating.