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I have a plasma TV attached to my Mac Pro. I use it maybe once a week, to watch movies. Rest of the time it just stays connected to my Mac. The problem is that Spaces in bird eye’s view always displays a box for the plasma, which makes my main display’s box too small.
Is there a way to disable the secondary display without actually unplugging it?
Ilya Birman
Posted 2009-08-21T19:54:44.317
Reputation: 293
5
Sorry this happens to be a year later, but I was just looking for a way to disable my secondary display and came across SwitchResX. It has a taskbar menu item to quickly disable any connected monitors.
I'm not sure if this will solve your Spaces issue, but it might be worth a try.
calbar
Posted 2009-08-21T19:54:44.317
Reputation: 292
14
Since SwitchResX is not free, I have developed a simple free alternative, that allows you to turn off a specific Monitor.
Eun
Posted 2009-08-21T19:54:44.317
Reputation: 1 723
Is there a 10.8-compatible app for this? – yellow-saint – 2014-07-15T20:04:51.987
I'am not sure if it works on 10.8 just try it out. Tell me if it works for you. – Eun – 2014-07-16T07:11:20.510
The system tells me I cannot run the app as it is a 10.9+ app. – yellow-saint – 2014-07-16T22:39:31.200
Could you contact me on github? I can try to build it for 10.8. – Eun – 2014-07-17T08:38:10.333
2Ok, I added a new Release for support 10.6+, please try this version. – Eun – 2014-07-17T09:05:59.967
Works perfectly, cheers boyo! – yellow-saint – 2014-07-17T14:45:00.770
I'm not sure if this is an intended behaviour or a bug, but this does not removes the second display. It just seems to disable the use of it. The second monitor does not go off (it goes off when there's no video signal) and I can still see it on the Displays. Is it possible to actually turn off the monitor I want? – Damn Vegetables – 2014-12-13T10:49:56.970
@Eun Has support changed since 10.11? I know El Capitan made some pretty nasty changes to certain system level items; not sure what you rely on for this, but I'd love to use it. – Swivel – 2016-07-26T17:05:44.490
Looks like support for this has been discontinued since 2015, as "It has been reported that the software is able to cause irretrievable damages to your computer. Use at your own risk!" – Brad Parks – 2018-04-05T18:48:55.383
The following answer may help if your use case is like mine (remote Screen Sharing)
– Brad Parks – 2018-04-05T19:35:07.9931
@BradParks, sorry for necrocommenting, but it may be a good idea to clarify to people that may stumble on this answer in the future: that "this software may cause damage" report apparently is related to this github issue. And honestly (and as some comments on that issue also point out) I find it extremely unlikely that a piece of software would cause this kind of damage (fry a thunderbolt port). It's more likely to be a coincidence, specially considering there was only this one report. It's kind of baffling the maintainer put that on README.
– Fernando Figueiredo – 2019-09-28T17:00:02.773@BradParks But yes, the application has been unmaintained for awhile. Despite that, it works fine all the way to Mojave, and since that's what comes closest to a workable solution, I for one am stuck with it. – Fernando Figueiredo – 2019-09-28T17:03:28.423
Note that with 10.15.2 when I use this it disables all displays until (I guess) some sort of detect event occurs (like power cycling one of the displays) - after that they all come back.
Just putting it out there - I'd definitely pay a few dollars for this if you got it working in Catalina and put it on the App Store. – WillyC – 2019-12-30T17:46:15.780
6
The only thing I can come up with which worked for me was to turn on mirroring (in the monitor menu in your menu bar, or in the screen preferences pane) and then turn off the secondary display. Spaces will then only show one display.
When you want it back (for watching movies, etc.), turn on the display and turn off mirroring.
This solution feels very kludgy to me, so I'm hoping there's a better answer (like 3rd-party software or a hidden pref which can be set via Terminal). But it should suffice for the short term.
John Rudy
Posted 2009-08-21T19:54:44.317
Reputation: 3 267
1My main display is 2560 at 1600, while plasma is 1920 at 1440, so if I enable mirroring, it will use the lowest for both. So this one does not work for me, unfortunately. – Ilya Birman – 2009-08-22T05:23:09.590
I haven't tried this one yet, but does just turning off the plasma work? – John Rudy – 2009-08-22T16:11:09.273
It does not, for me at least. – Ilya Birman – 2009-08-23T08:10:20.763
I'll keep an eye out for software that might be able to take care of this, but if no one else has an answer at this stage, I'm fearing we might be at the end of the rope on this one. :( – John Rudy – 2009-08-24T01:01:56.060
1
I found a different approach which works for my use case - showing a single monitor when connecting remotely to a multi monitor setup using Screen sharing.
All you have to do is enable "Display Mirroring", and the mac will automatically make it so all apps that were on different monitors are now on the one monitor.
More info in this similar question on AskDifferent stack exchange
Brad Parks
Posted 2009-08-21T19:54:44.317
Reputation: 1 775
-2
disconnect the second display and then click "detect displays" that did for me
1That will work, but it doesn't answer the question. The questioner is looking for a solution "without actually unplugging it". Since it's a Mac Pro, the external display connector is likely not very accessible. – Doug Harris – 2010-08-19T18:48:59.240
1I find that this keeps the monitor active just blacks out the screen. It doesn't actually turn off the monitors. – Andy – 2017-05-02T18:24:21.183
Ooops. I have found this SwitchResX some time ago and already have forgotten about my question here on SuperUser. Thanks for your answer. SwitchResX indeed is the solution that works. – Ilya Birman – 2010-08-20T08:05:04.263
@Andy exactly, it also means that GPU still has to render the main screen, which makes my system slower overall when I connect to my 2 external monitors at home. It's really annoying. Though it still runs faster compared to just leaving it on – MuhsinFatih – 2019-12-01T06:01:58.100
As of today, this is now a commercial product invalidating the answer. – leye0 – 2014-02-19T03:33:05.883