Change DPI on OSX

I'm not sure why people are giving answers about how to change the DPI setting for X11. Yes, Mac OS X includes a port of the X Window System, but I'm assuming since you didn't mention it in your question, it's not what you're asking about.

Unfortunately, the real answer to your question probably won't make you happy. Resolution independence has been "coming soon" to Mac OS X for years. Here's how it looked in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in 2005, and here's how things stand now in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. And not to talk out of school, but things aren't looking much better in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

All of that said, if you want to give it a try, install the Mac OS X developer tools (they're on the Mac OS X installation DVD) and then launch the Quartz Debug application that you'll find in a subfolder of the Developer folder on the top level of your hard drive. Then select User Interface Resolution from the Tools menu and you'll see a window like this:

User Interface Resolution

Move the slider and see just how awful everything looks. Note: you'll have to re-launch most applications before they'll use the new DPI setting. (The Dock and a few other things auto-re-launch when you move the slider.) Overall, I think you'll be disappointed. The wait continues...

John Siracusa

Posted 2009-07-27T02:33:12.270

Reputation: 1 197

For anyone thinking about changing DPI, here's my result on OSX 10.5: It's horribly broken. Even Finder's icons are all over the place. XCode looks fine but crashes after I do anything with it, which is the deal breaker for me. – David Lin – 2009-07-28T04:36:18.943

Any idea how to change DPI by 1.5 or 1.25 in 10.11 ? – Pier – 2016-04-16T03:58:01.870

"you'll find in a subfolder of the Developer folder on the top level of your hard drive". where is this exactly? – Kalamalka Kid – 2018-01-02T01:33:10.170

FWIW, MacOS Lion has a new HiDPI mode that's basically 2x DPI density, like iOS Retina. It's not an end-user feature yet but the underpinnings are there. http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/14

– Nelson – 2011-08-21T15:08:03.373

just to update, it still s*xx in Lion too. – csadam – 2012-04-19T16:31:26.623

Have you tried on Snow Leopard ? Is it better ? – Laurent Etiemble – 2009-12-17T08:44:29.007

I have. It is not. http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/21#resolution-independence

– John Siracusa – 2009-12-17T14:26:59.753

@csadam, John Siracusa: Any updates on this with the latest Maverick? – yurkennis – 2013-12-26T20:09:49.403

HiDPI mode works as of OS X 10.8: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/os-x-10-8/16/#retina

– John Siracusa – 2014-01-02T22:07:46.513

can anyone tell us why this was downvoted so may times? – Kalamalka Kid – 2018-01-02T00:14:18.997

@KalamalkaKid This setting would only apply to X11/XQuartz applications which haven't really been supported on macOS in ages. This won't do anything to modern applications and so really isn't relevant to what the OP asked. – Sirens – 2019-08-13T17:30:22.057

Change DPI on OSX

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