If you don't explicitly tell it where to open on a particular window it just opens where it was last open. If it's fresh installed app it'll open in the main screen. Which you can assign in Display settings. The apps themselves you can set where they open as mentioned in a context menu on the app in the dock. This was a learning curve I had to endure coming from Windows. So yeah agreed multi-monitor handling in MacOS could be better. But it's mostly fine and I don't have any real issues using macOS in dual/multi-monitor setup.
>So yeah agreed multi-monitor handling in MacOS leaves much to be desired.
"Leaves much to be desired" because Apple decided not to do it the Windows way?
Opens windows way larger than monitor and doesnt resize them properly when you move them to another monitor, opens windows so the top of the window is above the top of the monitor so you cant move them or resize them are the common issues i have. Dealing with a variety if monitor profiles with a laptop is a nightmare.
virtual desktops unable to be moved independently of each monitor. opening a program in one virtual desktop opens up a new instance of it, rather than just taking you to your already opened instance. leaving program windows minimally restored and out of view of your window.
there are many faults between both systems, but i personally find windows' most debilitating
Among other things, it always opens apps on monitor one. I use four monitors at work. The first three minutes of my job each day is to put windows back where they were the previous day.
this doesn't match my experience with windows at all. are you still using windows 10 at work, perhaps? they did a SHITLOAD of work on window positioning and multi-monitor in windows 11. what you describe simply never happens for me on windows 11; windows open where they were left, including on secondary monitors.
aye well there you go. windows 10 was better than 11 in some ways, but definitely not in window management. windows 11 knocked it out of the park with that tbh. i'm just now trying macos for the first time, and i like some things about it a lot, but MAN i miss windows 11's window management (even including the new window tiling that sequoia has, which makes things better, but still nowhere near as good)
Honestly I'm noticing certain trends among some reddits across Apple products, The biggest trend of all; most users of Apple products are dumb, they buy the highest end MacBook just to say that they have an expensive material item. I wouldn't put it past that 99% of Mac users don't even know what a terminal is. I'm a software engineer so I have to use almost all operating systems for products I support. At this point Linux is literally easier to use than both Windows and Mac.
Ah. I always thought it was random.
Personally, I wish apps would open on whichever monitor you opened them on. If my 2nd display is active and I spotlight an app to open, I’d expect it to open there, not on my 1st or 3rd display, even if I last opened it on said displays…
One of the reasons why my desktop setup is 1 display.
Also would love if Apple fixed macOS’s external display scaling issues. If you use a display that doesn’t adhere to macOS’s preferred pixel density (220 for Retina), you have to scale to the equivalent resolution for your display size to get the UI to feel like a good size… as a result your Mac is now buffering that bigger resolution in VRAM/RAM and then downsampling it back to your monitor’s physical resolution, putting extra strain on the GPU. Of course each frame is only generated as needed, sitting on the desktop doing nothing results in 0% GPU useage. While I don’t think it’s enough to cause any issues, people have reported issues with particularly GPU-demanding workloads
I can see both views. Open on the current display, or always open on the same display.
I like my mail app always on the same monitor so that I know where to check mail. BBedit I like to open on the current display.
Giving a setting option per app would be the way to go here. But developers especially Apple, just love not giving people options it seems. There is a trend in the industry over the past decade to provide less customization and options in software, it seems developers want to be the ones to decide what they think is the best way to interact with their software. Nothing wrong with that, but set that stuff as default and give options for power users to decide how to change it.
Yes: Apple’s.
In particular:
- LG Ultrafine 5K
- LG Ultrafine 4K 2.15” (not the 23.5”)
- LG Ultrafine 5K
- Apple Studio Display
- Apple Pro Display XDR
- Dell U3224KB
- Samsung Mateview 27” 5K Display
You can also opt for a 27” 1440p display, which will appear the same as a 27” 5K display in macOS (and the UI will scale best for the average person), but you’ll be using 1x scaling… which doesn’t look good. Pixel-haven. Apple’s also dropped sub-pixel antialiasing and I believe ARM addresses displays differently than x86 in a way that is worse with lower-resolution displays… so I’d recommend sticking to 4K and higher.
I have a Dell 4K monitor which is 27inches got it for $200 on sale. It definitely looks 4K and in native resolution, I don't think it can look any better than it does right now unless I go up in resolution.
And that’s fine… in fact the default scaling (which is “looks like 1080p”) you might find to be just right.
What I’m saying is that the UI size/scaling most people like for a 27” display is “looks like 1440p”. With a 4K display, you end up having macOS generate a 5K desktop frame anyway — occupying more VRAM — and then having to downsample the 5K frame back to 4K — wasting precious GPU cycles — before outputting the frame. The result? A UI that does look like 5K on a 4K display, but also slightly blurry due to the original software pixels not perfectly lining up to the physical pixels even after the downsample.
Better off getting a 5K display if it’s something you notice. If you don’t notice it (or again prefer the bigger default UI scaling) then yeah 4K 27” is perfect
Yep I use the default 1512x982 on the computer screen but I forget which one I use on the monitor itself. It’s one of them but it looks native and I see no difference between that at when I plug in a windows monitor. It’s equally crisp and sharp but the monitor has trash colors compared to my Mac screen.
I don’t know if it’s using extra gpu power but it doesn’t seem like it in the activity monitor. Even if it is, I’ve never noticed a difference
Unfortunately so. Apple selected a pixel density that the industry hasn’t bothered targeting. The result: low demand and low competition creating high-priced selections for those who want it.
This wouldn’t be an issue if Apple fixed their scaling to adjust based on pixel density, but who would then buy their expensive monitors?
You sound like a pro....do you have any advice on how to keep the task bar on the same monitor all the time. Mine moves for reasons I can't seem to isolate a d it's driving me insane.
Yeah if you quit the app without telling it where to open in the context menu setting it will default to the laptop screen. However if you open with spotlight on the focused monitor it will open in that monitor or desktop.
I just experimented with Preview, which is something that I've had particular issues with over the years.
Opened a PDF from Finder on the main screen; it opened on the main screen. Dragged to the second, closed it, then opened it again. It opened on the main screen.
Closed it, dragged the Finder window to the second screen and opened the PDF again. It opened on the main screen. Dragged it to the second screen and closed it, then reopened again. It opened on the main screen.
Unless I'm being thick, I can't see a way to get PDFs to open on the second screen, which is often where I want them.
:edit: Just remembered the "Move to..." option in the Window menu. This moved it to the second monitor, then, after I closed the PDF and reopened it, it opened on the main monitor. So yeah, fuck knows.
Did you actually close PREVIEW or just the document you had open? Preview itself runs in the background, so you would have to right click quit from the task bar.
Well I have two monitors and never have this kind of issue. Perhaps some default config is what you need also you can probably use a script to open an app and tell it in which screen
Make the monitor you want active by clicking inside it first. Then open an app. It should open there.
If you want an app to always open on a certain monitor, add a desktop with Mission Control and then go to the dock, right click the app, and select to always open new windows on Desktop from Monitor 1 or 2.
You should be able to right click or ctrl click on an open app to control where an app will appear.
options include
all displays
desktop 1
desktop 2
etc.
Weird, I have amazing experiences using a MBP and two external monitors compared to doing the same on my Windows work PC.
macOS remembers a lot of configurations, if I reconnect the two monitors it knows to move all my windows to the center monitor and place them exactly how I like them. If I move a large window into a smaller mentor it will automatically resize the window to fit the smaller monitor and if I drag it back to the large monitor it will restore it to the previous size.
With windows every time I connect my computer my windows just randomly appear on the main screen.
And windows switches what the main monitor is only every other plugin to a dock and fucked up every context menu in their current version.
Nah both are not perfect but macOS is still superior to Windows. I can’t effectively work with windows.
The dock is dynamic and is enabled from any monitor via moving the mouse to the bottom middle of each screen. Together with sidebar and the ability to park apps and have them merge together using the shift key, it all gets easier so much easier... Don't fight the dock and do learn how to use side bar and the experience becomes much more seamless.
I think MacOS is just made with laptops in mind and the multiple monitor setup is not really on their minds. Dont know the numbers, but I feel like Macbooks dominate the MacOS use cases, followed by integrated iMac machines with a single moderately large display, which is basically the same as a laptop in terms of window management.
I love the virtual desktop management etc. on my MacBook when I am on the go. On a superwide desktop monitor the same stuff it feels pretty clunky and unintuitive, e.g. what you said.
My biggest regular annoyance with MacOS external window management is that you cannot assign a “Space” to a monitor. My work computer is a MacBook, and I regularly use it both as a laptop and docked with a monitor at my desk, and there is no way to tell the OS that when it’s docked to a monitor I always want a specific Space assigned to the external monitor. So every single day I get to shuffle them around back and forth manually every time I plug in my monitor.
Are you talking about *extended* desktop or are you talking about *spaces*? The latter *clearly* doesn't actually "extend" your desktop (try "splitting" a window between both monitors and try to convince me that's an "extended" desktop. ;-) ).
Actually I found that MacOS was pretty good compared to windows at handling the content though the monitors. What Mac sucks at is external screen calibration, why does it have to be so hard and I can’t simply plug it in.
You do ? I sometimes had that but it somehow went away.
For me the aspect ratio is always right, simply it doesn’t scale, HDR looks shit, color balance is all over the place, refresh rate isn’t up to standards…. And so on. Nah tbh that’s the only thing I hate about Mac’s and it’s the kind of behavior that guarantees I’ll never buy an Apple display.
You can check yabai, https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai. I use it for the tiling windows and also to control where each app is opened.
It’s a big hack, though, and a bit of a fiddle to set up.
Seems like this should be a per app setting. Some menu with a list of apps and you just select from a dropdown which monitor you want it to open on every time.
If I keep my monitors "the same" then most apps open up where they were last used.
But since I have a laptop that I jack into various desks at home and at client offices, I just assume things might need to be moved. After at times telling the system where I want my dock after telling it how the displays are arranged.
I have honestly never noticed this issue. Now I will be.
Alternately using a Mac mini, MacBook Pro and my iPad with multi keyboard has proven to be a game changer. Multiple monitors keyboard used on all 3 devices moving between monitors seamlessly. Though it does take some practice and has glitches.
Its great for productivity.
While it is bouncing on the dock, click on the screen you want it, and it will go there. I use RDC, and have the system picker on my main screen, and once I initiate a connection, I click on the second screen, and there pops up the Windows Machine, without fail.
This issue makes me laugh because it’s obviously dreadful but everyone’s will to die on the hill because they don’t want to admit that something might be better on another OS.
See also, no immediate button for zoom / maximise and giving every single window a full screen button next to minimise instead.
buy an old 12 inch ipad pro and use Sidecar? When performing display preferences make sure you select yo big ole monitor as MAIN. And then drink heavily.
That is an issue with the program itself. I have several programs that will open in the monitor it was last closed in. And my audio production program that needs three screens always remembers which screen went with what monitor. I have 3 monitors and have no problem at all.
It is actually a lot better than windows, but still needs improvements.
One of the weird things it does is that it favours the last screen where you used the launchbar.
It's the app that determines which monitor it shall use. Some apps will detect which monitor you're currently using, but some apps will remember their windows position when you quit it. So no matter where you launch it, it will just open these window at old position.
I just wish my apps would open on the monitor I opened them on; haven’t been able to find a way to do this. Like why would anyone want to open an app on Monitor 1 and have the app show up on Monitor 2? The default behavior should be to just open on the same monitor the icon was clicked on.
A lot of it isn’t the OS, it’s the app developer. Adobe apps do all kinds of weird things, especially if you run an app on the MacBook screen, and then (as I often do) run it on an external monitor with the lid shut. It really freaks Adobe apps out. And even if you move the app, pop-up dialogs (such as save) still might come up on a completely different screen.
To my understanding of MacOS; the system itself chooses where the initial window of an application opens up (which is why it’s remembering the last monitor it was open on in the first place)
What gets me is that this behavior goes completely unaddressed and there’s no setting to change how it works. My monitors are supposed to give me more space to do everything with ease, acting as separate little spaces independent of the other; I feel completely taken out of my flow when I have to play “Juggle the windows” every time I open a new application.
For people who keep everything in the same place all the time; I understand the default behavior works for them, but what about people who want to constantly open, close and move things around.
It’s just one of those things that makes me think “Maybe Linux is worth another shot”
It makes sense this way too though. If you always have an app on monitor two then do you want to switch to the other monitor just to open it? What size and position should the window be when it opens? Your monitors might have different dimensions
MacOS is fundamentally a drag and drop OS. So full screen mode doesn't actually make a lot of sense and it's not very well optimized for full screen modes with multiple monitors.
An app will open on which monitor you click on the dock. That is how I used MacOS for the past few years.
Maybe you have chosen for an app to open to specific monitor or something similar , but what you need has been a thing for a long time . It is not hard, you just need to figure out what you had configured to not do this.
Don't blame MacOs for the fact that you don't know how to do it.
I have multiple screens, multiple spaces and my apps open exactly where I need them to be.
Sure: move the app to the screen/space you want it to be. Right click on the doc icon of the app, select that you want the app to be in that space. Profit.
Man I don’t know.. I actually find multi-monitors on MacOS better than windows. On windows I always have issues with my window positions resetting and bouncing to the default monitor. On MacOS I never have those problems.
I am going to the FBI for hacking my business account I have all codes windows tokens instructional pages, and even the contact for my phone contact card 89 bytes
It’s changed a few times in the past ten years with each new OS version. It used to work just like you want.
Currently, you need to enable the option for (unintuitively imo) “Seperate dektops per screen” or something. It’s part of Apple’s insitence on treating each Mac now like a mobile device. I fucking hate it but at least you get menu-bar on each screen.
Sure they could have made a shortcut for ‘move window to other screen” and they even had it back in Mojave but why do what pro users want when teenagers with their mom’s credit card are such a more appealing market
I feel you , some how asking for higher refresh rate over 60 hz on a mac is too much even for a 1080 resolution let alone 1440 p or 4k over hdmi . My 8 year old graphics card supported dp 1.4 allowing me to push 1440p at 165 and here I am stuck on same monitor with 60 hz with mac . Can't even strech xcode over multiple screens . I have no idea why poeple fawn over Apple products .
I just wish my HDMI monitors would display from my M1 MBP without a bunch of snow and blurry picture garbage. Works fine with a DisplayPort dock but directly plugged in everything looks terrible. Haven’t found a solution yet. I saw things about MacOS using “TV Mode” instead of recognizing it as a monitor and others, but no solution works. It’s frustrating. No problems with DisplayPort monitors though that I’ve seen.
I have two different docking setup at work and home office. One is wide screen and second is two monitors. Both MacOs and Windows 11 have mixed bag of experience. Most of the time, it works. But when it does not then it might get messed up. The worst case is window getting too small or even out of the monitors. With Appple, it helps to reset or clean install. With windows win+arrow keys help.
I think the reason is that Apple struggled with the process back in the 90s. The processes tend to block the processor thread. There was even a choice to select main process back at the time. As MacOs is over two decade old and its Windows manager is from the time when we only had one monitor and we ran single window of the single process at the single monitor. When other operating systems had focus on multitasking then Apple focus was mostly hardware and their userbase was not a poweruser. This changed when Apple silicon was introduced, except Apple still had no reason to fix the multitasking issues in their operating system.
This might change now as Microsoft might finally get into the RISC platform and give its user a powerful platform. We already saw window snipping feature finally introfuced. Perhaps we will also see soon quick switch of windows or desktops.
If you don't explicitly tell it where to open on a particular window it just opens where it was last open. If it's fresh installed app it'll open in the main screen. Which you can assign in Display settings. The apps themselves you can set where they open as mentioned in a context menu on the app in the dock. This was a learning curve I had to endure coming from Windows. So yeah agreed multi-monitor handling in MacOS could be better. But it's mostly fine and I don't have any real issues using macOS in dual/multi-monitor setup.
>So yeah agreed multi-monitor handling in MacOS leaves much to be desired. "Leaves much to be desired" because Apple decided not to do it the Windows way?
Fuck windows use of multi monitors. It sucks so much. Every time I have to go back I am amazed how shit windows is.
What's so bad about it? It's been fine every time I've used it.
Opens windows way larger than monitor and doesnt resize them properly when you move them to another monitor, opens windows so the top of the window is above the top of the monitor so you cant move them or resize them are the common issues i have. Dealing with a variety if monitor profiles with a laptop is a nightmare.
It’s been a few years since I last used a windows laptop with multiple monitors. Thank you for reminding me of this absolute hell.
I hate windows handling of it too but I’ve had all these issues on mac as well unfortunately
virtual desktops unable to be moved independently of each monitor. opening a program in one virtual desktop opens up a new instance of it, rather than just taking you to your already opened instance. leaving program windows minimally restored and out of view of your window. there are many faults between both systems, but i personally find windows' most debilitating
Among other things, it always opens apps on monitor one. I use four monitors at work. The first three minutes of my job each day is to put windows back where they were the previous day.
this doesn't match my experience with windows at all. are you still using windows 10 at work, perhaps? they did a SHITLOAD of work on window positioning and multi-monitor in windows 11. what you describe simply never happens for me on windows 11; windows open where they were left, including on secondary monitors.
Yep. Windows 10.
aye well there you go. windows 10 was better than 11 in some ways, but definitely not in window management. windows 11 knocked it out of the park with that tbh. i'm just now trying macos for the first time, and i like some things about it a lot, but MAN i miss windows 11's window management (even including the new window tiling that sequoia has, which makes things better, but still nowhere near as good)
For example if you have two monitors at same size with different resolutions, moving a window from one to the other is glitchy as hell.
Windows has come a long way with multiple monitors. I think it's decent in W11, or at least on par with other systems. It used to be a lot worse.
You can criticize windows for a lot of things, but not for window management and multi monitor support compared to macos.
I'd be careful praising Windows here People tend to have a habit of thinking Mac OS is better. P.s but I do agree with you.
Yeah no wonder shitty things in macos remain shitty for decades if fanboys cancel conversations about it
It’s so bad I wish they accepted optional window managers without disabling every security measure.
Honestly I'm noticing certain trends among some reddits across Apple products, The biggest trend of all; most users of Apple products are dumb, they buy the highest end MacBook just to say that they have an expensive material item. I wouldn't put it past that 99% of Mac users don't even know what a terminal is. I'm a software engineer so I have to use almost all operating systems for products I support. At this point Linux is literally easier to use than both Windows and Mac.
Ah. I always thought it was random. Personally, I wish apps would open on whichever monitor you opened them on. If my 2nd display is active and I spotlight an app to open, I’d expect it to open there, not on my 1st or 3rd display, even if I last opened it on said displays… One of the reasons why my desktop setup is 1 display. Also would love if Apple fixed macOS’s external display scaling issues. If you use a display that doesn’t adhere to macOS’s preferred pixel density (220 for Retina), you have to scale to the equivalent resolution for your display size to get the UI to feel like a good size… as a result your Mac is now buffering that bigger resolution in VRAM/RAM and then downsampling it back to your monitor’s physical resolution, putting extra strain on the GPU. Of course each frame is only generated as needed, sitting on the desktop doing nothing results in 0% GPU useage. While I don’t think it’s enough to cause any issues, people have reported issues with particularly GPU-demanding workloads
I can see both views. Open on the current display, or always open on the same display. I like my mail app always on the same monitor so that I know where to check mail. BBedit I like to open on the current display.
Giving a setting option per app would be the way to go here. But developers especially Apple, just love not giving people options it seems. There is a trend in the industry over the past decade to provide less customization and options in software, it seems developers want to be the ones to decide what they think is the best way to interact with their software. Nothing wrong with that, but set that stuff as default and give options for power users to decide how to change it.
I think the devs do that so that the product has fewer bugs. Hard to introduce bugs if you don’t have to code for multiple scenarios.
Are you aware of any monitors that meet that spec?
Yes: Apple’s. In particular: - LG Ultrafine 5K - LG Ultrafine 4K 2.15” (not the 23.5”) - LG Ultrafine 5K - Apple Studio Display - Apple Pro Display XDR - Dell U3224KB - Samsung Mateview 27” 5K Display You can also opt for a 27” 1440p display, which will appear the same as a 27” 5K display in macOS (and the UI will scale best for the average person), but you’ll be using 1x scaling… which doesn’t look good. Pixel-haven. Apple’s also dropped sub-pixel antialiasing and I believe ARM addresses displays differently than x86 in a way that is worse with lower-resolution displays… so I’d recommend sticking to 4K and higher.
I have a Dell 4K monitor which is 27inches got it for $200 on sale. It definitely looks 4K and in native resolution, I don't think it can look any better than it does right now unless I go up in resolution.
And that’s fine… in fact the default scaling (which is “looks like 1080p”) you might find to be just right. What I’m saying is that the UI size/scaling most people like for a 27” display is “looks like 1440p”. With a 4K display, you end up having macOS generate a 5K desktop frame anyway — occupying more VRAM — and then having to downsample the 5K frame back to 4K — wasting precious GPU cycles — before outputting the frame. The result? A UI that does look like 5K on a 4K display, but also slightly blurry due to the original software pixels not perfectly lining up to the physical pixels even after the downsample. Better off getting a 5K display if it’s something you notice. If you don’t notice it (or again prefer the bigger default UI scaling) then yeah 4K 27” is perfect
Yep I use the default 1512x982 on the computer screen but I forget which one I use on the monitor itself. It’s one of them but it looks native and I see no difference between that at when I plug in a windows monitor. It’s equally crisp and sharp but the monitor has trash colors compared to my Mac screen. I don’t know if it’s using extra gpu power but it doesn’t seem like it in the activity monitor. Even if it is, I’ve never noticed a difference
Wow that was impressive. Too bad they are so expensive.
Unfortunately so. Apple selected a pixel density that the industry hasn’t bothered targeting. The result: low demand and low competition creating high-priced selections for those who want it. This wouldn’t be an issue if Apple fixed their scaling to adjust based on pixel density, but who would then buy their expensive monitors?
Yeah I've switched to opening with spotlight as it will open on the monitor spotlights is on
You sound like a pro....do you have any advice on how to keep the task bar on the same monitor all the time. Mine moves for reasons I can't seem to isolate a d it's driving me insane.
This is false - I have apps that always open on the laptop screen and not on the big screen, every time I unplug the screen from the laptop.
Yeah if you quit the app without telling it where to open in the context menu setting it will default to the laptop screen. However if you open with spotlight on the focused monitor it will open in that monitor or desktop.
>So yeah agreed multi-monitor handling in MacOS leaves much to be desired. 🤔 Seems fine to me...
People have different opinions, who knew?
Yep, and one of them is usually wrong. lol
I just experimented with Preview, which is something that I've had particular issues with over the years. Opened a PDF from Finder on the main screen; it opened on the main screen. Dragged to the second, closed it, then opened it again. It opened on the main screen. Closed it, dragged the Finder window to the second screen and opened the PDF again. It opened on the main screen. Dragged it to the second screen and closed it, then reopened again. It opened on the main screen. Unless I'm being thick, I can't see a way to get PDFs to open on the second screen, which is often where I want them. :edit: Just remembered the "Move to..." option in the Window menu. This moved it to the second monitor, then, after I closed the PDF and reopened it, it opened on the main monitor. So yeah, fuck knows.
Did you actually close PREVIEW or just the document you had open? Preview itself runs in the background, so you would have to right click quit from the task bar.
I quit it with cmd+Q.
Well I have two monitors and never have this kind of issue. Perhaps some default config is what you need also you can probably use a script to open an app and tell it in which screen
Make the monitor you want active by clicking inside it first. Then open an app. It should open there. If you want an app to always open on a certain monitor, add a desktop with Mission Control and then go to the dock, right click the app, and select to always open new windows on Desktop from Monitor 1 or 2.
This is the way.
You should be able to right click or ctrl click on an open app to control where an app will appear. options include all displays desktop 1 desktop 2 etc.
Use external monitors daily, it’s not that hard. Works fine.
Weird, I have amazing experiences using a MBP and two external monitors compared to doing the same on my Windows work PC. macOS remembers a lot of configurations, if I reconnect the two monitors it knows to move all my windows to the center monitor and place them exactly how I like them. If I move a large window into a smaller mentor it will automatically resize the window to fit the smaller monitor and if I drag it back to the large monitor it will restore it to the previous size. With windows every time I connect my computer my windows just randomly appear on the main screen.
I have 3 monitors and don’t have this experience.
I’ve used multi monitor on Mac for… geeze, decades I guess (yikes I’m old). Zero complaints.
Since 2001, no issues here. Just have to understand how to do it.
And windows switches what the main monitor is only every other plugin to a dock and fucked up every context menu in their current version. Nah both are not perfect but macOS is still superior to Windows. I can’t effectively work with windows.
Windows does this also. Though sometimes it opens where my mouse is, so if I move too fast it’ll open on a different screen.
The dock is dynamic and is enabled from any monitor via moving the mouse to the bottom middle of each screen. Together with sidebar and the ability to park apps and have them merge together using the shift key, it all gets easier so much easier... Don't fight the dock and do learn how to use side bar and the experience becomes much more seamless.
MacOS remembers the last position. Or you can manually assign one with right-clicking the Dock icon and the option should be there.
No issues here since 1984...
Windows is worse..
I think MacOS is just made with laptops in mind and the multiple monitor setup is not really on their minds. Dont know the numbers, but I feel like Macbooks dominate the MacOS use cases, followed by integrated iMac machines with a single moderately large display, which is basically the same as a laptop in terms of window management. I love the virtual desktop management etc. on my MacBook when I am on the go. On a superwide desktop monitor the same stuff it feels pretty clunky and unintuitive, e.g. what you said.
Because Apple is "lazy" supporting mostly their own hardware. It is easy to say it works, when you are still in capitalism. Stupid arguments.
i've got a mac studio that will swap two of the three monitors on occasion. they're the same model and both usb-c connections. it's a bit annoying
My biggest regular annoyance with MacOS external window management is that you cannot assign a “Space” to a monitor. My work computer is a MacBook, and I regularly use it both as a laptop and docked with a monitor at my desk, and there is no way to tell the OS that when it’s docked to a monitor I always want a specific Space assigned to the external monitor. So every single day I get to shuffle them around back and forth manually every time I plug in my monitor.
i actually like the way osx works with multiple displays -- the only annoying thing is firefox, it can't seem to remember the last used spaces.
Are you talking about *extended* desktop or are you talking about *spaces*? The latter *clearly* doesn't actually "extend" your desktop (try "splitting" a window between both monitors and try to convince me that's an "extended" desktop. ;-) ).
Apple did do it a long time before, like in 1987 just as windows was being launched.
It is odd it randomly opens on different screens. I use 2x external screens & 1x laptop. BUT windows isn’t much better.
This is one of the things that Mac just sucks at and Windows just works. Finder vs Explorer is another one of them.
it's so hard to get the display settings window on my laptop screen when my extended screen is showing content from another input.
Actually I found that MacOS was pretty good compared to windows at handling the content though the monitors. What Mac sucks at is external screen calibration, why does it have to be so hard and I can’t simply plug it in.
The hardware aspect is terrible, I hate that when you output sound to a monitor over HDMI you lose all OS volume control.
You do ? I sometimes had that but it somehow went away. For me the aspect ratio is always right, simply it doesn’t scale, HDR looks shit, color balance is all over the place, refresh rate isn’t up to standards…. And so on. Nah tbh that’s the only thing I hate about Mac’s and it’s the kind of behavior that guarantees I’ll never buy an Apple display.
You can check yabai, https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai. I use it for the tiling windows and also to control where each app is opened. It’s a big hack, though, and a bit of a fiddle to set up.
The worst thing is the resolution on a 4k external monitor
Seems like this should be a per app setting. Some menu with a list of apps and you just select from a dropdown which monitor you want it to open on every time.
If I keep my monitors "the same" then most apps open up where they were last used. But since I have a laptop that I jack into various desks at home and at client offices, I just assume things might need to be moved. After at times telling the system where I want my dock after telling it how the displays are arranged.
I have honestly never noticed this issue. Now I will be. Alternately using a Mac mini, MacBook Pro and my iPad with multi keyboard has proven to be a game changer. Multiple monitors keyboard used on all 3 devices moving between monitors seamlessly. Though it does take some practice and has glitches. Its great for productivity.
While it is bouncing on the dock, click on the screen you want it, and it will go there. I use RDC, and have the system picker on my main screen, and once I initiate a connection, I click on the second screen, and there pops up the Windows Machine, without fail.
Just set the extended display as main display.
This issue makes me laugh because it’s obviously dreadful but everyone’s will to die on the hill because they don’t want to admit that something might be better on another OS. See also, no immediate button for zoom / maximise and giving every single window a full screen button next to minimise instead.
buy an old 12 inch ipad pro and use Sidecar? When performing display preferences make sure you select yo big ole monitor as MAIN. And then drink heavily.
The short all encompassing answer would be the abstract idea of Apple Vision Pro replacing monitors.
I use an app called Stay to stay sane. https://cordlessdog.com/stay/
Next Os will have window snapping too now that microsofts patent ended. Headache over
That is an issue with the program itself. I have several programs that will open in the monitor it was last closed in. And my audio production program that needs three screens always remembers which screen went with what monitor. I have 3 monitors and have no problem at all.
Cause I took care of that shit yesterday Jacqueline Gonzalez
It is actually a lot better than windows, but still needs improvements. One of the weird things it does is that it favours the last screen where you used the launchbar.
It's the app that determines which monitor it shall use. Some apps will detect which monitor you're currently using, but some apps will remember their windows position when you quit it. So no matter where you launch it, it will just open these window at old position.
I just wish my apps would open on the monitor I opened them on; haven’t been able to find a way to do this. Like why would anyone want to open an app on Monitor 1 and have the app show up on Monitor 2? The default behavior should be to just open on the same monitor the icon was clicked on.
A lot of it isn’t the OS, it’s the app developer. Adobe apps do all kinds of weird things, especially if you run an app on the MacBook screen, and then (as I often do) run it on an external monitor with the lid shut. It really freaks Adobe apps out. And even if you move the app, pop-up dialogs (such as save) still might come up on a completely different screen.
To my understanding of MacOS; the system itself chooses where the initial window of an application opens up (which is why it’s remembering the last monitor it was open on in the first place) What gets me is that this behavior goes completely unaddressed and there’s no setting to change how it works. My monitors are supposed to give me more space to do everything with ease, acting as separate little spaces independent of the other; I feel completely taken out of my flow when I have to play “Juggle the windows” every time I open a new application. For people who keep everything in the same place all the time; I understand the default behavior works for them, but what about people who want to constantly open, close and move things around. It’s just one of those things that makes me think “Maybe Linux is worth another shot”
exactly! i don't want to have to choose every time or pick one default!
It makes sense this way too though. If you always have an app on monitor two then do you want to switch to the other monitor just to open it? What size and position should the window be when it opens? Your monitors might have different dimensions
Hmm, I’m rocking 8 studio displays, everything works great for me.
Unfortunately that’s how it works
MacOS is fundamentally a drag and drop OS. So full screen mode doesn't actually make a lot of sense and it's not very well optimized for full screen modes with multiple monitors.
This would be great if they hadn’t replaced the maximise button with full screen on literally every window you have open.
I’ve been using macOS since 1988 or so and I totally disagree with that. macOS is FANTASTIC in fullscreen mode.
An app will open on which monitor you click on the dock. That is how I used MacOS for the past few years. Maybe you have chosen for an app to open to specific monitor or something similar , but what you need has been a thing for a long time . It is not hard, you just need to figure out what you had configured to not do this.
I run 3 monitors plus my main on my M2 MacBook Pro with no issue.
Many Mac users share their issues with multi-monitor app placement. Try to open the app window on the target monitor.
Don't blame MacOs for the fact that you don't know how to do it. I have multiple screens, multiple spaces and my apps open exactly where I need them to be.
You could help them instead?
Sure: move the app to the screen/space you want it to be. Right click on the doc icon of the app, select that you want the app to be in that space. Profit.
Don’t blame them for the fact that you’re a dick.
Man I don’t know.. I actually find multi-monitors on MacOS better than windows. On windows I always have issues with my window positions resetting and bouncing to the default monitor. On MacOS I never have those problems.
I am happy with macos on three 27” monitors
I have two Studio Displays. No issues like you describe.
I am going to the FBI for hacking my business account I have all codes windows tokens instructional pages, and even the contact for my phone contact card 89 bytes
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Windows does the same thing for me
It’s changed a few times in the past ten years with each new OS version. It used to work just like you want. Currently, you need to enable the option for (unintuitively imo) “Seperate dektops per screen” or something. It’s part of Apple’s insitence on treating each Mac now like a mobile device. I fucking hate it but at least you get menu-bar on each screen. Sure they could have made a shortcut for ‘move window to other screen” and they even had it back in Mojave but why do what pro users want when teenagers with their mom’s credit card are such a more appealing market
I feel you , some how asking for higher refresh rate over 60 hz on a mac is too much even for a 1080 resolution let alone 1440 p or 4k over hdmi . My 8 year old graphics card supported dp 1.4 allowing me to push 1440p at 165 and here I am stuck on same monitor with 60 hz with mac . Can't even strech xcode over multiple screens . I have no idea why poeple fawn over Apple products .
I just wish my HDMI monitors would display from my M1 MBP without a bunch of snow and blurry picture garbage. Works fine with a DisplayPort dock but directly plugged in everything looks terrible. Haven’t found a solution yet. I saw things about MacOS using “TV Mode” instead of recognizing it as a monitor and others, but no solution works. It’s frustrating. No problems with DisplayPort monitors though that I’ve seen.
I find that’s often a factor of the cable (edit, spelling)
Do you have a cable rec? I’ve tried as basics up to audioquest. Seems to be the same issue
I have two different docking setup at work and home office. One is wide screen and second is two monitors. Both MacOs and Windows 11 have mixed bag of experience. Most of the time, it works. But when it does not then it might get messed up. The worst case is window getting too small or even out of the monitors. With Appple, it helps to reset or clean install. With windows win+arrow keys help. I think the reason is that Apple struggled with the process back in the 90s. The processes tend to block the processor thread. There was even a choice to select main process back at the time. As MacOs is over two decade old and its Windows manager is from the time when we only had one monitor and we ran single window of the single process at the single monitor. When other operating systems had focus on multitasking then Apple focus was mostly hardware and their userbase was not a poweruser. This changed when Apple silicon was introduced, except Apple still had no reason to fix the multitasking issues in their operating system. This might change now as Microsoft might finally get into the RISC platform and give its user a powerful platform. We already saw window snipping feature finally introfuced. Perhaps we will also see soon quick switch of windows or desktops.
Stop trolling, ChatGPT, we know it’s you.
Why don't you know how to use macOS?