Have you considered how many screens your Mac can support?

Estimated reading time: 80 minutes

Extending the workspace on a Mac is always useful with multiple applications open to minimize app switching but how far is it practical? Here is how one gets an answer to how many displays will work, but most critically which ones.

Today’s Macbook computers, particularly those with Apple Silicon-based M3 designers and architects, can work simultaneously with two screens. That includes the built-in screen on laptops, and in some cases, closing the lid of a computer means it cannot connect to a second external monitor. However, Macs with more forceful Pro, Max, or Ultra chips can cover more screens, as can a few Intel Macs.

Check Your Mac’s Display Support

However, the first thing here would be to check the Apple Menu and system information to have a look at ports available on your Mac’s hardware and the number of monitors the GPU can support. If you are using macOS Ventura 13 or later versions, Open System Settings either by clicking its icon on the dock, searching in the spotlight or by going to the Apple menu available at the top-left corner of the screen.

Now you will be users at the System Settings application; Go to the Help tab on the menu bar and choose the specifications menu. For instance, I have a Mac Mini, so next to it will read “Mac mini Specifications”. This part will open the support page of Apple’s website for the model you are using.

If your Mac is running macOS Monterey 12 or older the process is slightly different by clicking on the battery icon in the menu bar and selecting to turn off low power mode. Move to the Apple menu at the upper left corner of your screen and click on About This Mac. Go to Resources > Specifications > Video support and there you have the details of your hardware.

If you can’t even view the display information and nothing is showing, press the Apple key at the upper left corner of the screen + Option key (Alt key if for Windows) and click on ‘System Information’ or ‘System Profiler’. If you open the System Information application and choose the main line of the menu called Hardware, you will be able to find your Mac’s serial number there. You can copy and paste that into Apple’s device coverage site to find out which Mac you have. Once you are as familiar with the Mac model, go to Apple’s Mac documentation site and click on the Tech Specs page.

The details on your Macbook for your video output ports will be described usually in the “Video Support” section of your Mac specification page.

However, Apple was not very clear in its documentation about the limitations of having multiple displays particularly the type of display outputs. That’s what we’ll cover next.

The Complexity of MacBook’s Display Limits

Despite the latest MacBook, iMac, and Mac Mini computers developed with Apple Silicon chips, lower-end chips allow for the connection of only up to two displays. However, the two displays can be conveniently replaced by one screen, if the Mac has it built-in. For example, the latest 2023 iMac that came with the M3 chip utilizes only one external display alongside the native display. DisplayLink would be your best option, though that is not officially supported and there is the risk something goes wrong. Before Big Sur, most Macs – those with Apple Silicon or the higher-end only Intel Macs –could support additional displays with certain models, such as the Mac Studio or the 2023 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 Pro.

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The primary exception is the Mac mini, which has no built-in display, it can support two external ones. But one of the monitors must be connected via Thunderbolt port, and the second one must be connected via HDMI interface. They said that you are unable to join two screens to the Thunderbolt ports. That is hugely irritating problematic hardware when many monitors have support for only the DisplayPort and Mac computers give scaling troubles for certain monitors when being connected through the HDMI. Perhaps, DisplayLink can do that, but for sure, it is not an optimized solution provided by the manufacturer.

Apple Silicon supplied Macs, more specifically, Macs with the M3 Pro chip or above like the 2023 Mac Studio or 2023 14-inch MacBook Pro, which can support more displays at once. This is also one of the relatively few areas where some older Macs with Intel processors are more flexible than contemporary Apple Silicon. For instance, while the 2018 models Intel Mac Mini can support up to three monitors, the M1 as well as M3 Mini computers can support only two monitors.

Source: How-to-geek