On a MacBook, how do I use only the external screen?

2 points by Juliaparker ↗ HN
"Hi folks, hope someone can shed some light. I have a Macbook Air hooked up to a 4K LG monitor through HDMI via a Thunderbolt 3 hub. Everything works fine, but I can't find a way to turn off the Retina Display on the Macbook and just keep the external monitor as the only screen (in Windows/Linux, you can simply press Win/Super+P and cycle through Laptop, External, Mirror, Extend). Is there something similar for macOS?"

6 comments

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Close the MacBook lid and use it in a clamshell mode.
>Close the MacBook lid and use it in a clamshell mode.

... if you have an external keyboard and mouse/trackpad ...

I would guess that if someone can afford a MacBook air and 4k monitor they can buy a keyboard and mouse pretty easily.

Its the best solution, in my opinion, for MacBooks since you avoid the touchbar and keyboard variances and stick with consistent tools you can build muscle memory with. There are so many options out there too. OP could also just buy a USB KVM switch (sounds like their familiarity is with Windows) and use the same keyboard/mouse from desktop.

Clamshell is the only way. Or just not put app windows on the MacBook display.
Just mirror the external display, and set your brightness to 0. Easy,
I just tried this out right now, with a Macbook Pro 14" M1, 2021 on macOS Monterey 12.0.1

This is how to do it: https://www.lifewire.com/prevent-macbook-from-sleeping-when-...

- You need to be plugged into the power.

- got to battery settings.

- power adapter

- set display off to never (far right option on the slider)

- tick 'prevent your mac from automatically sleeping when the display is off.

It's a bit convoluted but it works.

Instead of setting display to never you can use a tray utility to manage that, in the past caffeine was the goto app for this. With mac M1 I am using owly but I'm not sure why it was just the first thing I installed on my fresh machine. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/owly-prevent-display-sleep/id8...