When I close my laptop while on the KDE desktop or using an application, the screen turns off. But if I lock the screen before closing the laptop, the screen stays on. Slightly annoying because I’m on an old macbook with an apple on the back that lights everything around it and is very distracting. I can’t seem to find much info on this. Locking screen, closing lid, opening lid, unlocking screen, and checking journalctl shows:

May 27 <time> <hostname> systemd-logind[987]: Lid closed.
May 27 <a few seconds later> <hostname> systemd-logind[987]: Lid opened.

But the backlight didn’t turn off when it was closed. I’m not really sure what’s going on here. Anywhere to start on this issue would be appreciated.

I realise you are using KDE, but XFCE might be a bit easier in this dept, but I wouldn’t really know since I don’t use KDE. Sorry I can’t be a bit more helpful. Here’s xfce4-power-manager-settings:

Checked power management. I have the “When laptop lid closed” option set to “Sleep”, which is what I want.

I also noticed a “Turn off screen” option that can be set to “When locked immediately”. It doesn’t wait for the lid to close but it gets most of what I want. If I can’t find anything better, I’ll mark this as solution.