Enabling/disabling doesn't work. MacBook Pro, Retina 2013. When having an external HDMI monitor connected, clicking Disable doesn't do anything - monitor blinks and then turns on again. Mavericks 10.9.4. Thank you!

I have a MBP 15 2014. I connect it to an external monitor then disable the MBP's screen.

When I turn off my external monitor while the MBP's screen is still disabled, the MBP logs out automatically.

Help

... are a bit confusing.

The default one is an orphan branch with just a README. The development branch seems to be gui? It would be much clearer if the README was moved to the gui branch and gui renamed to master, and master set as the default branch on GitHub.

When holding down the left mouse button on a screen in Arrangement, the red indicator rectangle appears on the main screen, making it seem like the screens are overlapping.

I think a screenshot will make the issue more clear.

Hi, is there a way to re-enable a previously disabled display when no other displays are plugged in?
In my setup, I'm using a Retina Macbook Pro with a 4k Dell screen attached. I use only one screen (the external one), but I use the keyboard and touchpad of the Macbook. Since having both displays (both Retina) slows down my Mac, I use DisableMonitor to turn off the MPB screen. It's annoying, though, that if for some reason I forget to re-enable the MBP screen before plugging off the external display, there is no way of re-gaining control of my system and I have to force a reboot, which is annoying.

Any solutions? I've searched for other similar issues without success, but sorry in advance if this had been asked before.

Andrea

On a 22" monitor in landscape mode, I can successfully scale to resolutions above the native 1680x1050 (up to 2560x1600). Point in case, I use 1920x1200 with wonderful results (due to Mac's extraordinary anti-aliasing).

However, once I put the monitor into portrait mode (270deg), the resolution options revert back to native resolution only or lower (i.e. 1050x1680 or less). Can "DisableMonitor" support higher scaling resolutions in portrait mode?

This utility has been an immense help -- thank you.

works fine via the menubar. when invoked via command line though, it starts (shows up in the command line) but does not respond in the terminal. Even though I tried all mentioned switches, it might be some silly mistake on my side...

OS X Yosemite, Mavericks

There does not seem to be any way to quit DisableMonitor app without using the command line such as:

killall DisableMonitor

I'd expect a usual "Quit" button in the menu.

Is it common, that I get logged out, after I deactivate/activate a monitor?

Greetz, Alex

Disable a set of monitors when another monitor is attached.
For example: plugging in HDMI.

Status: Beta in G1.9

I can list the displays (well display, currently only one), but when I try to enable it to test out 1.92, I get "Could not find display !", with the display of my laptop display.

I ran the app from my downloads folder (which works great). But I no longer need it now and it shows up on the Menu Bar every time I reboot. I can't just delete the .app from my downloads folder because it's "open" all the time.

When I disable the internal monitor the background image from that display is being overlayed onto the background image of the external display.
(Edit: compressed image. I'm using osx exposé to show the desktop, hence the weird borders)

Under most conditions the mouse pointer properly catches on the border between my main screen and the external display, and cannot enter. But if I move my mouse quickly towards that border, it seems I can 'jump' that border, and the mouse pointer disappears into the region of the external display. I've just confirmed that the mouse pointer is then visible on the black screen of that display. I'm using OS X 10.9.5 on an iMac with a magic mouse, should that be of any importance.

Hi, I've noticed that if you disable a display, the settings don't carry across sessions.

I'm just wondering if there's a way to disable a screen on startup, or if you would consider adding such an option?

Thanks, Paul

On Yosemite 10.10.4, built from 2c9e66b

% ./DisableMonitor --help
Assertion failed: (did_initialize), function CGS_REQUIRE_INIT, file Desktop/CGInitialization.c, line 40.
zsh: abort      ./DisableMonitor --help

Just confirming this is the expected behavior.

• Disable Monitor 1.9
• osx 10.10.3
• iMac 5k 4ghz core i7 32gb ram
• secondary thunderbolt display

Thanks for creating this!

When plugin a macbook to a 120Hz output device, it shall be possible to disable the primary screen. No way to make it work with DisableMonitor

Hello again! The fix was great everything started working. But now I have another problem.
When I'm using DisableMonitor and switch off the projector, then explicitly put the MacBook Pro to sleep (while keeping the lid open) and then wake it up - both screens go black. And then it usually needs a hard reset to make it work again.

I have my Mac locked with a password and I cannot enter a password or do anything - everything is black.

I don't have the same problem with SwitchResX.

It is not working properly on Dell U2212HM,
When i disable my Dell monitor, dell's wallpaper will come to my main screen(imac 27 2012 mid), sometimes dell's monitor goes blank for few seconds than show up screen again and i have to enable dell monitor and diable again.
So i tried reboot my computer, it worked for few times, after that, it has same problem like i wrote before.

This screen shot can show i disabled my dell monitor, but my monitor stil showing.

One thing,
i contact my monitor with Mini port to hdmi adapter and hdmi to DVI cable. Will it cause this problem? i bought another adapter, i will try it later, if this caused this problem, i will be back for update.

On my MacBookPro10,1 running 10.9.4, DisableMonitor can't disable my 27" monitors attached via Thunderbolt.

There is no option to quit the App.

Hi,

I got it setup and everythign was working but once you lock the screen (ctrl+shift+eject) all screens dim, typing on the keyboard then the mac asks for a password (which is correct) but on the internal montior which was disabled.

Entering password returns all 3 monitors (internal, montor 1 and monitor 2) so it reactivates all 3 monitors to ON where as I had internal monitor set to OFF and rest to ON.

Thanks

• when two screens are mirrored the second one is not recognised (not listed)

for example: The secondary monitor is a Cintiq13hd and it would be great to turn off its display when not used for drawing in photoshop while keeping its touch (pen) function - basically use it as a Intuos tablet.
(This works when it is used as a second screen without mirroring)

When disabling the middle of my three monitors, it flashes black, then comes back with all windows cleared off of it. Looking in the display settings, it also has moved to the right most position.

I'm running 10.10.5

I use the television connected to my iMac with an HDMI receiver in between. Sometimes I have switched my receiver to an other input, but I forgot to enable my iMac screen. To resolve this, I need to switch off the receiver entirely, or restart the iMac. It would be great if I had some kind of panic button, I can press some keyboard combination to reset / shutdown the DisableMonitor application.

I've noticed that disabling and then enabling my laptop's internal display with the app also changes OS X display arrangement settings. I have the internal display set as primary monitor (i.e. I have the top bar moved to it in the arrangement settings).

When I disable the internal display and re-enable it, the top bar in arrangement settings is moved to the external display. That also means all windows that were previously assigned to the internal display are now permanently in the external display, and the ones that were in the external display are now in the internal (i.e. it swaps the main display in the settings, causing all windows and full screen apps to move).

That doesn't happen when I simply close the lid of the laptop ("clamshell mode"), but does happen with the app. And it's a big deal for me as using the app at anytime means moving all my windows around to the way I had them before.

Yes, I have an imac old enough to still have to run snow leopard. I love this program, and want to help out, but the project fails to build due to MainMenu.xib on XCode 4.2 and OS X 10.6.8. (XCode 4.2 is a "developer network" only download for snow leopard, but I "obtained" a copy.)

hi eun,

love your tool, exactly what i was looking for.

i recognized that after disabling my second screen i have a big part of it's wallpaper on my first screen:

I try to figure out what's the problem but since i am very new to OSX-Developement i cannot promise anything.

Cheers

I tried this with my two external monitors on iMac 5k. It did disable the monitor but came back right in couple of seconds.

Hi,

Using El Capitan version 10.11 (15A284), if I disable the internal monitor, the screen flashes, and it partially disables the internal monitor, I mean, it disables navigating to it, and System Preferences reports there is just one screen, but the internal monitor screen still shows there.

DisableMonitor version is 1.92.

Here's how I use this app:

I have a Macbook and a big external monitor. When I connect the Macbook to the external monitor, I disable the Macbook screen. That way:

• I can still use the keyboard
• The cursor never gets "lost" on the other screen
• I maximize the hardware resources by rendering only the content on the external monitor.

Most of the time while using the app, I just want to enable or disable the laptop monitor. I suspect this is a majority use case. Right now the user experience has a few tedious steps:

1. Click the tray icon

2. Hover over primary monitor name

3. Move mouse to the side without moving off of monitor name

4. Click Disable

   Perhaps this could be simplified.

A keyboard shortcut to enable/disable would be a nice touch. It would make this process one step. The other keyboard shortcuts that I use all the time are:

• zoom in/out (Option-Command-8)
• invert/regular colors (Control-Option-Command-8)

So I propose enable/disable monitor (Shift-Command-8). This would look nice as a top level item in the tray:

When disabling my Macbook internal display, sometimes my external display turns on and off. Sometimes it happens once and then not again for awhile, and then sometimes it does it over and over again. I eventually have to re-enable the internal monitor and unplug/plug in my external monitor again for it to stop. I have it as a normal Mirror Screen for now and it doesn't do that, so I'm pretty sure the problem is within the app. I'm using a Macbook Pro Mid-2012 running OS X 10.10.4 using a Dell U2715H monitor.

It would be nice to have a built-in "Quit DisableMonitor" option in the dropdown Taskbar GUI, instead of having to run "kill DisableMonitor" in Terminal.

Hello

This app is just what I am looking for! A way to disable a monitor without having to pull the cable out of the back so I can use my PC on that monitor..
However it's not quite working :(

Anyway when I disable my 2nd monitor it goes black and then comes back on showing the background and the Mac top bar but you cannot move the mouse onto that screen and any open applications are also stuck on that screen but are not selectable.
Is this a bug or intended? I was hoping it would disable the monitor and then move all active apps onto the main screen.

Regards,
Chris

I am using this app on 10.10.2 Yosemite. It seems to work in that when I select which display to turn off (the internal display on my MBP) it turns the screen black, but I can see that the screen is still lit up. Is this normal? Is the display considered "off" in this situation in terms of using my computers resources?

Thanks, I appreciate this great and useful app!!

The volume and brightness osd is being misplaced on the external monitor when the intenal monitor is disabled. The screenshot is taken at the bottom left of my screen.

A weird thing is that occasionally the volume osd will display correctly, but the next time I try it's back to the left of the screen. I resized the browser window in the background to provide som sort of reference.

Just use the Close Button of the Window.

Is there anything special in this great application which prevents it from running on OS X Lion? I have an old MacBook which detects a phantom display (http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/142880/macbook-detects-a-phantom-display) and I think your application is exactly what I am looking for. Unfortunately it does not run on that machine. If it is only about changing build target, could you please build a version which supports older OS's too?

Hi,

Disabling and enabling the monitor in a dual monitor setup, it works fine. The issue is that after enabling the monitor, the display arrangements switch places. so right monitor becomes left display and left becomes right display.

To be specific: My setup was OS X 10.10.3.
Main display input goes to right monitor, secondary display input goes to left monitor.
Now I setup my left monitor as (1) and right monitor (2) in OSX. So to picturize ==> | (1) | (2) | <==

Problem happens only when I disable (2) and re-enable it. The display arrangement becomes | (2) | (1) |

Can you please check this out?

Note: if I disable (1) and re-enable, my setup remains the same.

Is it possible to have the app reload on reboot and remembering settings.

Everytime I reboot I need to reload the app and apply settings again - manually.

Thanks

When monitors are disabled, and you attempt to modify the screen arrangement in System Preferences -> Displays -> Arrangement, the System Preferences window freezes for a few second, you get a spinning beachball, and afterwards the changes are reverted (i.e. the arrangement doesn't change at all).

This is a stupid tool! It disables main screen without telling you that you have no way of getting it back.

Hey!
I've really enjoyed this tool on Mavericks, but when I recently updated to Yosemite I faced some issues. At first I couldn't disable the internal montior of my MBP at all. Now I reinstalled DisableMonitor and rebooted and it works (which is great!!). However, when I re-enable the internal monitor again I can not turn it off a second time until I reboot my system. I have no idea what causes this, but I'm happy to test out some stuff if that helps.

Thanks a lot for your great work!
Best wishes from Hamburg, Germany

I'm trying to use the command line options in a script (on Yosemite), but the screen I'm trying to disable stays enabled, and the call to DisableMonitor doesn't return.

El Capitan seems to break DisaableMonitor app.

I have an Etekcity docking station that has two monitors connected to it. I would disable my Mac Air screen with no problems until the El Capitan update.
With El Capitan, turning off my Air screen renders all three screens blank with only a mouse pointer appearing. The system appears frozen or I am locked out. I cannot use the machine at all.
To resume I must shutdown, and restart. And I still cannot use the app. If I try again the same thing happens.

I know El capitan has only been out for a short time but if there's a fix it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

My configuration

• Yosemite 10.10.5
• DisableMonitor 1.92
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)
• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB

When I switch the internal monitor off, I can see the backlight on, like it all the screen was turned to black but not disable. My expectation was that disabling the monitor would turn it off completely.

This application is really what I was looking for, I was using the "fridge magnet" solution but I am a little bit scared about magnets on top of my laptop.

Hi Eun,
First, thank you for this amazing app. I'm running DM 1.9, on a 2012 retina display 13" running Maverick 10.9.5. Just wanted to let you know that when my computer goes to sleep both screens, main and the external monitor get disabled. By that, I mean both screens have power going thru them but will be black and won't display anything. However, everything else is still running in the background. I have tried many things to re-enable the main screen but to no avail. I have tried, unplugging the external monitor, closing the mac's lid, force closing the app, even made a workflow to try and re-enable to main screen using automator "watch me do" but none of them helped. The only thing that made a difference at this point was a restart. This has happened many times now. Please help, I'm a noob to Mac and don't know what else to do. Please let me know if there's a way to add a kill switch to the app. Some sort of a script that could be accessed with a shortcut key that would re-enable the main screen? Thanks

I am unable to disable the internal display on my MBP.

Setup:
I have an external monitor attached through a DP cable to a rMBP Late 2013 running Yosemite 10.10.1

Steps to reproduce:
After clicking "disable" the internal screen flashes black and then comes on again. I am then unable to move the mouse or any windows to it, but it still has a wallpaper and a menu bar on it. System preferences also shows that two displays are connected, even though the arrangements are all messed up.

Windows seems to be still on the disabled monitor, they are inaccessible.
Move them after the display was disabled.