Apple has lengthy provided a laptop computer possibility while you wish to use simply an exterior show in mirrored mode and never view the interior monitor. You may shut the clamshell lid, and your separate display screen continues to work. However what if you wish to have exterior units energetic and don’t want a show? One reader, as an illustration, desires to maintain a webcam energetic however shut their laptop computer’s lid.
Apple doesn’t present a “headless’ possibility, and I can’t discover third-party software program designed for client fashions. It is likely to be undoable.
You may preserve the lid opened just a little bit and set it in order that its show dims after a brief interval:
- In Monterey or earlier, go to System Preferences > Battery, and within the Energy Adapter view, verify “Stop your Mac from robotically sleeping when the show is off.”
- In Ventura, go to System Settings > Shows, click on Superior, after which allow “Stop automated sleeping on energy adapter when the show is off.”
Another choice is to connect a tiny, cheap exterior show and set the identical particulars as above. As an example, this $60 7-inch show designed for gaming and Raspberry programs would work.
It might probably appear just a little ridiculous to connect a $100, 10-inch monitor to your multi-hundred or thousand-dollar-plus laptop computer to have it preserve working, but when it does the trick for what you want, your drawback is solved. Notice you possibly can’t simply flip the facility off on the exterior show: it would seem as unavailable to macOS and change show management again to the interior display screen.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a query submitted by Macworld reader Me.
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