BetterDisplay (formerly BetterDummy) is a truly wonderful tool! It let's you convert your displays to fully scalable screens, allows brightness control, provides XDR/HDR upscaling (extra brightness beyond 100% on compatible displays), 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 preferences easily from the menu bar.

(Note: some of these features are available as beta)

Some Macs tend to have issues with custom resolutions. Apple Silicon Macs notoriously don't allow sub-4K resolution displays to have HiDPI ("Retina") resolutions even though most 1440p display would greatly benefit from having a HiDPI "Retina" mode. On other Macs the resolution options for wide displays are too constrained. To fix these issues, some resort to buying a 4K HDMI dummy dongle to fool macOS into thinking that a 4K display is connected and then mirror the contents of this dummy display to their actual monitor in order to have HiDPI resolutions available. Others use the built in screens of their MacBooks as a mirror source. These approaches have obvious drawbacks and limitations

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 (feature currently available latest beta). 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.

• Convert your internal and natively connected external displays to smoothly-scaled HiDPI displays on Apple Silicon even without mirroring a dummy (available in the latest beta)! *
• Reach the full brightness potential of your XDR or HDR display (available in the latest beta). *
• Change the display's brightness, volume and colors via software and hardware (DDC) control (available in the latest beta).
• **Create custom HiDPI resolutions for real displays manually and redefine certain system display parameters (available in the latest beta).
• 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. *
• Portrait SideCar support. *
• 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.
• Simplify creating mirrored sets. *
• Easily move around displays relative to each other using the app menu.
• Easily designate a display to be main display.
• Associate dummies with displays for auto connect/disconnect.
• Keyboard shortcuts support. *
• Custom dummies (resolution, orientation, naming).
• Create a dummy optimized for a real display.

Some features require BetterDisplay Pro.

1. Download the latest version
2. Move the app to Applications folder on your Mac.
3. Start the app.
4. Use the app menu bar item to interact.

BetterDisplay has several uses and lots of features, but one of the most seeked-after one is unlocking fully scaled desktops and HiDPI resolutions on Apple Silicon macs.

To enable the feature,

1. Start the app and opten the app menu (locate the BetterDisplay icon in the menu bar).
2. Open Preferences (the gear icon at the bottom of the menu).
3. Navigate to the Displays section in Preferences,
4. enable the Edit and manage the system configuration of this display feature first under the display you want to make smoothly scalable (the list can contain more than one display in a multi-monitor setup!),
5. and then enable the Allow smooth resolution scale option just below it as it appears.
6. If you did this for all the relevant displays, click on the Apply System Display Configuration button at the bottom of the screen.
7. Enter your admin password and then reboot.
8. After reboot, use the resolution sliders in the app menu to scale the desktop.

• the smooth scaling option can be enabled on a per display basis, so if you want more of your displays to have this feature, don't forget to scroll down in the app Preferences > Displays tab and make the setting for each of your displays! :)
• The feature is compatible with macOS Monterey 12.4+, macOS Ventura and Apple Silicon macs and requires natively connected (DisplayPort, HDMI) or built-in screens. The maximum allowed scaled (HiDPI) desktop size can't exceed the native display resolution. You'll also need the latest BetterDisplay beta (version 1.2.5 and newer) - download it here!
• The feature works if the system properly detects the Native panel pixel resolution. If this is not correctly shown for your display under Preferences > Displays, please select the Edit native panel pixel resolution option and enter the correct values!

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 locate your display's name and click on the Settings sub-menu under it.
3. Click on the Create Dummy for This Display option.
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.

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 macs running macOS Monterey (MacBook Air, Mini, 2020 and 2021 MacBook Pros). Development and testing also takes place on Apple Silicon.
• Most features of the app is also compatible with Intel Macs capable of officially running macOS Big Sur or newer. However, dummy mirroring and unlocking smooth resolution scale might not work as expected especially on Intel Macs, especially those with AMD GPUs.
• The app is compatible with headless mode as well (both Apple Silicon and Intel).

Please note that dummies (virtual displays) have some intrinsic limitations in current macOS versions which might affect some use-cases (the native smooth scaling unlock feature is not affected by this):

• Dummies are optimized for SDR content and they cannot render HDR content.
• Dummies work at 60Hz (or lower), high refresh rates (120Hz, 144Hz etc.) are not supported.
• Dummies do not support HDCP (this is required for the playback of some copy-protected video content, like Apple TV shows).

• https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers
• https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/23/enable-1440p-retina-scaling-m1-mac/
• https://www.macworld.com/article/549493/how-to-m1-mac-1440p-display-hidpi-retina-scaling.html

Also the app made it to the featured news (once took the first spot) in Hacker News.

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29064234
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29469837

You can now support development by purchasing a BetterDisplay Pro license directly in the app. Just navigate to Preferences... > 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. The original open-source version is also available for free.

For more info check out 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 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 BetterDummy 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.