BetterDisplay is a truly wonderful tool! It let's you convert your displays to fully scalable screens, manage display configuration overrides, allows brightness and color control, provides XDR/HDR brightness upscaling (extra brightness beyond 100% for compatible displays with Apple Silicon Macs), full dimming to black, helps you create and manage virtual displays (dummies) for your Mac, create Picture in Picture windows of your displays and gives you a host of other features to manage your display's settings easily from the menu bar.

• Convert your internal and natively connected external displays to smoothly-scaled HiDPI displays on Apple Silicon - now even without mirroring a dummy (displays with notch, HDR, HDCP, high refresh rate fully supported)! *
• Reach the full brightness potential of your XDR or HDR display - XDR brightness upscale to 1600 nits, external HDR brightness upscale! *
• Change the display's brightness, volume and colors via software and hardware (DDC) control via sliders and native or custom keyboard shortcuts!
• Change display inputs via DDC on supported displays.
• Create custom HiDPI resolutions for real displays manually and redefine certain system display parameters!
• Create any number of dummies (virtual screens) with varying aspect ratios.
• Enable Night Shift for your TV!
• Protect display configuration, forbid auto-switch to VRR etc. *
• Use headless Macs (servers) with any resolution and HiDPI mode for remote access.
• Create Picture in Picture window for any real or dummy displays. *
• Redirect your display's contents (real or dummy) to an other screen via streaming. *
• If you are using a big TV up close, use the bottom half of your TV as a wide screen display (off-center streaming). *
• Scale Sidecar resolutions and portrait SideCar support (via dummy full screen streaming). *
• Better quality zooming (System Preferences»Accessibility»Zoom) or High Quality screenshots even on 1080p displays
• Easily change the resolution of your real and dummy displays via a slider (or submenu) from the menubar.
• Quickly accessible refresh rate and screen rotation menu.
• Simplify creating mirrored sets. *
• Easily move around displays relative to each other using the app menu.
• Quickly designate a display to be main display.
• Associate dummies with displays for auto connect/disconnect.
• Keyboard shortcuts for basic operations.
• Advanced keyboard shortcuts support. *
• Custom dummies (resolution, orientation, naming). *
• Create a dummy optimized for a real display. *
• Export display EDID and show detailed display information (Apple Silicon).

... and more is coming! :)

Note: featues marked with an asterisk (*) require a Pro license. Some features may be available in the latest pre-release version only.

1. Download the latest version
2. Open the DMG file and move the app to Applications folder on your Mac as instructed.
3. Start the app.
4. Use the app menu bar item to interact with the app.

Here are some instructions on how to activate the most seeked-after features of the app.

With BetterDisplay you can fully unlock the maximum brightness of your Apple XDR display as well as your third party HDR capable display.

You don't have to do anything special to enable the display - once you start the app, you can simply use the brightness slider to increase the brightness level beyond 100% to produce up to 1600 nits on your Pro Display XDR. For other HDR displays, the app automatically sets up the maximum brightness upscaling level taking into account the reported maximum panel brightness.

Please note that the XDR/HDR upscaling feature requires an Apple Silicon Mac!

Some other steps that might be neccessary:

• If you want to use your native Apple keyboard brightness control keys, you need to set up the Accessibility Privileges. Follow the instructions under Settings (the gear icon at the bottom of the menu) / Keyboard / Set up Accessibility Permissions
• For third party HDR displays, you need to enable HDR mode to use HDR brightness upscaling. You can do so in the app menu by clicking Enable HDR Mode. This is not required for XDR displays (these automatically switch to EDR/HDR mode).
• Please note that on-screen HDR content will tone-map properly when the brightness slider is set to 100% (on third party HDR displays, or 50%-100% on XDR displays)

Some Macs have issues with custom resolutions. Apple Silicon Macs notoriously don't allow sub-4K resolution displays to have HiDPI ("Retina") resolutions even though some 1440p display would greatly benefit from having a HiDPI "Retina" mode. On other Macs the resolution options for wide displays are too constrained.

BetterDisplay solves the problem by unlocking your screens making them fully scalable natively while providing a nice HiDPI resolution slider to freely scale the desktop size. Also available is the option to create a flexible virtual "dummy" displays that support an unprecedented range of Retina resolutions. You can then utilize this dummy display as a mirror source for your display achieving any HiDPI resolution or for other purposes.

To enable the native smooth scaling feature:

1. Start the app and open the app menu (locate the BetterDisplay icon in the menu bar).
2. Open Settings (the gear icon at the bottom of the menu).
3. Navigate to the Displays section,
4. Enable the Edit the default system configuration of this display feature under the display you want to make scalable,
5. Enable the Set up native smooth resolution scaling option just below it as it appears.
6. You can also open Show advanced settings for native smooth scaling and enable Add a near-native HiDPI variant for the native resolution as well.
7. If you did this for all the relevant displays, click on the Apply Changes button at the bottom of the screen.
8. Enter your administrator level credentials and then reboot.
9. After reboot, use the resolution sliders in the app menu to scale the desktop.

An alternative (for some scenarios the only valid) approach is to create a mirrored dummy in order to use custom resolutions. This works for Sidecar and other non-native devices (like DisplayLink) and also enables scaling beyond the native resolution of the display panel on Apple Silicon (for added screen real estate). Follow these steps to do this:

1. Start the app and locate the app menu (you'll see a BetterDisplay icon in the menu bar).
2. In the app menu's Tools section locate the Create New Dummy option
3. Click on the Create and Configure for... option at the bottom that matches your display.
4. In the ensuing pop-up select Connect and Set up Mirroring.

It's that simple. Afterwards you should see your dummy mirrored to your display where you can use the slider to change the resolution quickly.

Please note that the dummy/virtual screen mirroring method is a workaround and have some drawbacks compared to native smooth scaling - there might be sleep issues, color issues (flickering on some setups), mouse cursor related problems on Monterey 12.5 and beyond. Whenever possible, it is advised to use the native smooth scaling method.

To help with mouse cursor related macOS bugs when a virtual screen is mirrored, you can go to System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Pointer size and slightly increase the pointer size above normal.

You can join the discussion on the BetterDisplay Discord channel. If you have any issues or questions, don't hesitate to ask!

• The app is compatible with all Apple Silicon and Intel Macs running macOS Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura.
• XDR/HDR upscaling requires an Apple XDR display (built-in or external) or a natively connected HDR display (VESA DisplayHDR 600 or higher recommended) and an Apple Silicon Mac.
• Native Smooth resolution scaling requires macOS Ventura or Monterey 12.4 (or newer) and natively connected displays. Entry level M1 machines have a max. horizontal resolution limitation of 6K (8K on M1 Pro/Max/Ultra) with native smooth scaling.
• External display hardware backlight control and volume control require DDC capable, natively connected display or a natively supported Apple display. The HDMI port of Macs do not support DDC (however most USB-C to HDMI dongles do work). Some docks (especially DisplayLink ones) might not support DDC. Software brightness control is available for all displays.
• The app is compatible with headless Macs to create custom dummy resolutions for remote access.

You can support development by purchasing a BetterDisplay Pro license directly in the app. Just navigate to Settings (gear icon) > Pro and click on Buy BetterDisplay Pro. Please note that even if you don't buy the app, you can still use many of the features for free (if you are a non-business user).

Check out the license terms for the app.

For more info, see this discussion.

• I'd like to thank you for backing the open source project in the past by providing you with a coupon code so you can get a BetterDisplay Pro license for no additional cost. If you'd like to receive a code, please contact me at Discord by sending a private message or opening a separate discussion and posting a screenshot of the confirmation you received from Open Collective. I'll respond with a coupon code (some patience might be needed). Thank you!

I am thankful for each of you who contributed to the project.

Please don't forget to star the GitHub page and spread the word about the app. :)

• Licensing uses the third party provider Paddle as backend. This also means that the app communicates over the network with Paddle's servers to verify licensing, trial status and facilitate check-out using Paddle's SDK. Besides data required for licensing purposes by Paddle's services, no other info is transferred over the network.
• I decided not to have a marketing list (marketing opt-in) of any kind. I also do not build any usage database or collect unique (and not unique) IDs either - besides what Paddle collects and presents on its dashboard for me (to keep track of valid software licenses).
• Aside from Paddle the only other form of network communication by the app is what is required for the built-in updater to work in order to receive the update metadata and download the update binary.