Hi guys, just wondering, do the internal lights turn off after a certain amount of time when door or rear hatch is open? Not sure if I've left the door open long enough to know.

No - they will stay on until all the doors are closed.

EDIT - Oops, I am wrong.

Yes, they eventually shut off to save the battery

From 2016 owners manual:

5Interior features
4RUNNER (U)_(OM35B23U)
■Illuminated entry system
 Vehicles without a smart key system
The lights automatically turn on/off according to the engine switch position,
whether the doors are locked/unlocked, and whether the doors are open/
closed.
 Vehicles with a smart key system
The lights automatically turn on/off according to engine switch mode, the
presence of the electronic key, whether the doors are locked/unlocked, and
whether the doors are opened/closed.
■To prevent battery discharge
If the following lights remain on, the lights will go off automatically after 20
minutes:
●Engine switch light
●Front interior light
●Rear interior light
●Personal lights
●Footwell lights
●Inside door handle lights
●Door courtesy lights
■Customization
Setting (e.g. the time elapsed before lights turn off) can be changed.
(Customizable features: P. 485)

Owner's manual?! If I read that, I wouldn't have any "online friends". Dang this is awesome information!!

Thanks so much!

Can that 20 minute delay be shortened? Like to 1 minute or so?

Without going to look it up, I'm pretty sure that is one of the things you can change with Carista.

tbh why would you want to shorten the lights to turn off after only one minute?

Resurrecting an old thread... sadly this doesn't seem to be a thing with my 2019 ORP. Nothing in the manual or in Carista about shortening this interval. I had a look at the wiring diagram and sadly there's three separate signals for the front, rear, and hatch doors that go to two separate ECUs so adding an override switch doesn't seem like a good option here either. Has anyone found a solution for this?

This 20 minute interval is a fail safe for the battery. There seems to be no way to shorten the time. If you’ve changed your interior bulbs to LEDs they won’t draw that much power anyway.

If you want to keep the lights on longer, as when camping with the doors or hatch open, you can push a door frame button to re-trigger the 20 minute timer.

My wifes Highlander is like this, they just stay on.

On my 2011 you can select on/ off/ auto. Off they never come on, on they're on even with the doors shut, and auto they come on when the doors are open. I always like to have the option, like if you're camping or cleaning the car you can switch them all to off. Nuts!
They got rid of party-mode too probably, hit the button and you get some bass boost/ liven up the tones/ crank the tailgate speakers up a bit more...

When camping. In and out of vehicle. Would be nice to disable them entirely for this reason.

In my ‘22 all the interior lights have switches except for the courtesy lights at the bottom of the front door panels.

if you switch the dash light dimmer switch all the way down it should shut off some of the courtesy lights. at least on my 2012 it works that way

also yesterday I discovered my door handles have lights on them on the inside. all four of them. wtf how did I not notice this ever

Talk about a thread revival!

I frequently drive to hunting and camping trips and have always been able to turn off all of my interior lights (map/dome/cargo) by flipping the switch to "OFF." Yes, the puddle lamps on the bottom of the door turn on when the door is open, but that is helpful to see if there is anything I need to avoid when getting out.

Not sure how that switch could be missed?