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 settings easily from the menu bar.

• NEW! 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)! *
• NEW! Reach the full brightness potential of your XDR or HDR display! *
• NEW! Change the display's brightness, volume and colors via software and hardware (DDC) control via sliders and native or custom keyboard shortcuts!
• NEW! 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.
• 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.
• 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. *

... and more is coming! :)

Note: featues marked with an asterisk (*) require a Pro license.

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.

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.

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.

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 Settings (the gear icon at the bottom of the menu).
3. Navigate to the Displays section in Settings (gear icon),
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.

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.
• Smooth resolution scaling requires macOS Monterey 12.4 or newer and natively connected displays. Entry level M1 machines have a max. horizontal resolution limitation of 6K (this limitation does not apply on M1 Pro/Max/Ultra) with smooth scaling.
• Dummy mirroring based resolution unlock works with every Apple Silicon macs. Dummies have some limitations (60Hz refresh rate, lack of HDCP and HDR support).
• External display hardware backlight control and volume control require DDC capable, natively connected display or a natively supported Apple display. The HDMI ports of 2018+ Macs do not support DDC, so you have to use USB-C/DisplayPort (most USB-C to HDMI dongles work as well). Some docks (especially DisplayLink ones) do not work. Software brightness control is available with all displays.
• XDR/HDR upscaling requires an Apple XDR display (built-in or external) or a natively connected HDR display (Vesa DisplayHDR 600 or higher recommended).
• The app is compatible with headless macs to create custom dummy resolutions for remote access.

• 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 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. 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 BetterDummy 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 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.