Using a second Mac as a display for a first

Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information below at your own discretion.
This Frequently answered question (FAQ) comes about:
Can an iMac/iBook/Powerbook/MacBook act as a display for another Mac since they all have a built-in display?
The truth is complicated because you have to consider who is doing the processing, and who has the drivers for the work being done.
1. For people who want the processing power of multiple Macs together, there is
Daugerresearch.com's Pooch.
2. Apple's Target Disk Mode lets you treat the hard disk of one Mac as an external drive to another. You do have to be careful with this, only the Mac that is currently booted to an active screen has its drivers enabled. If you need the drivers of the other Mac to do some sort of installation, it may not work right, or if you need it to run specific software.
3. The iMac 27" now has a DisplayPort Input port that allows displaying from a second Mac. See Using a 27-inch iMac as an external display. There are some hurdles to get there, however some third party solutions for those hurdles are listed on:
http://lowendmac.com/ed/bashur/09db/dvi-to-mini-displayport.html
4. If you have a second screen to initially setup a Mac as a server of some sort you can make it "headless" (i.e. no second screen necessary) using one of these solutions:
iChat Screen Sharing
OSX VNC
Netopia's Timbuktu
Apple Remote Desktop
Microsoft Remote Desktop
Screen Recycler
Finder Screen Sharing
The speed of your network though can make such solutions appear too slow for words. If you use IP over Firewire on Mac OS X
10.5, 10.4, or 10.3 reasonable speeds can be obtained.
Elgato makes Firewire compatible capture devices which can capture S-Video. If you output the video of that Mac to an S-Video connector, you can view its video on the Elgato capture screen in 720 x 480 resolution. This usually is too little real estate for an effective second display, but for some it may be the quickest solution available.
In addition, Mac Minis, Intel based iMacs and Mac Pros do accept any display that supports VGA or DVI. Contrary to what you might think, you aren't stuck to Apple's displays. The Apple displays themselves are true Progressive LCDs that are widescreen with color matching, extra ports, and an extra place to put an iSight mount if you can find an original iSight. DVI supports more resolutions, and dual-link DVI even more.
This is the 2nd version of this tip. It was submitted on March 12, 2010 by a brody.
Do you want to provide feedback on this User Contributed Tip or contribute your own? If you have achieved Level 2 status, visit the User Tips Library Contributions forum for more information.

Hi Brian,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. You can mirror the displays or make whichever display you want the primary in Extended Desktop mode. See this article for details:
How to use multiple displays with your Mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5019
The white bar at the top of the left blue box represents the menu bar and determines which display is your primary display. To change your primary display, click the white bar and drag and drop it on the blue box representing the display you would prefer to be your primary display.
Cheers,
- Ari

Similar Messages

Re: Using a second Mac as a screen for a first

"This tip is ready for consideration"

Good question as I was wondering about that myself. I was planning on purchasing a new macbook in the fall and would like to intall Aperture on it as well.
These two statements from the eula seem contradictory:
+*2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.*+
+B. Single User License. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on one Apple-labeled desktop computer and one Apple-labeled laptop computer so long as both computers are owned and used by you.+
+C. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time.+
As I read it section B reads it can be used on one desktop AND on one laptop. (Notice it says and rather than or.) Section C however reads it cannot exist on more than one computer at a time.
Anyone care to clarify what it's really saying?

Use my I-mac as a display for another PC?

How can I hook up another PC to my i-mac display?

VNC, Remote Desktop (either Apple's or Microsoft's), or you need a Mac compatible of Target Display Mode and a PC that can transmit video over the same standard as the Target Display Mode compatible cable.

Using the IMac 27 only as display for MacBook Pro

Hello,
i like to use my iMac 27 only as display for my MacBook Pro.
I have the connecting cable.
I must start the iMac, he is booting and then i can plug in the cable to my MacBook. Now i have the second display for using with my MacBook.
Now my question: Is it possible to use the display without booting the iMac-system?
Thank you for help!
Best wishes
Lutz

LutzTrabert wrote:
Now my question: Is it possible to use the display without booting the iMac-system?
no.
[_*Using a 27-inch iMac as an external display*_|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924]
JGG

How can I use my rMBP as a secondary display for my iMac using thunderbolt?

Based on this thread, it's not possible: https://discussions.apple.com/message/19207767
But, I'm stubborn and refuse to believe that. Maybe they've released a software update (e.g., in Mountain Lion) that has since made this possible? Maybe there is an app that allows for this?
Note that I don't want a solution that involves network hacks... this is at work, and I'd rather not slow down the network for others. And I'm not interested in the reverse setup (i.e., using my iMac as a secondary display for my rMBP).
iMac: 27-inch, Late 2012. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M 512 MB. OS X 10.8.4.
rMBP: Retina, Mid 2012 (15" I think). NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB. OS X 10.8.4.

It's not possible. You can use the iMac as a display for the MBP, but the reverse is not possible. The MBP does not have Target Display Mode as a feature and no third-party app nor hack can enable something that doesn't exist. The only way to accomplish this will be one of the network solutions.
Regards.

Can I hook use an older iMac as an display for my Macbook Pro?

Can I use an older iMac as an display for my Macbook Pro? The Macbook Pro has the Mini display port and the iMac has the older (larger) display port. I am trying to have a document open on the iMac while writing a paper on the Macbook Pro.
Thank you for your time.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You can use the Mid 2011 iMac as a display for your 2011 MacBook Pro. Both have Thunderbolt, so you won't have any problem > http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11302?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Buy a Thunderbolt cable and press Command and F2 keys on the iMac to enable Target Display

Using an iMac as a 2nd display for another iMac?

Hi all,
is it possible to use an iMac as a 2nd display for another iMac?
I guess it depends (if at all possible) on the models, right?
Would it be possible with two of the currently available iMac 27" models?
Is it just connecting the two video jacks with a cable? That would mean that the jack is input AND output connector at the same time: the video signal would be output from iMac 1 and serve as input for iMac 2.
Thoughts?
Thanks,
Stefan.

Awesome, David! Thank you! That helped a lot!
Additional question: because running applications on the target-display-mode-iMac keep running: will I be able to connect from the source iMac to the target-mode-iMac via OS X's Share Screen functionality? So that I can still USE the 2nd (target-display-mode) iMac for running applications and accessing them? Or is the iMac in target display mode really just a dumb display? Will ssh'ing to it work?
A little background: programs like Cubase and Logic work really great with two screens. Additionally, some audio plugins really need a lot of CPU power and some of those can actually distribute the number crunching via the LAN to other computers. So my thought is: run Cubase on iMac #1, use iMac #2 as a 2nd screen (will work, thanks to David's reply) AND use iMac #2's CPU, too, to help some Cubase plugins' number crunching. Would that work?
Thanks a lot,
Stefan.

I purchased Lightroom on my old Macbook but recently updated to a Mac with Retina display for editing my photos. I don't want to purchase Lightroom again and want to keep my catalog I have been using. Is there a way to access it on my new computer?

I purchased Lightroom on my old Macbook but recently updated to a Mac with Retina display. How do I access Lightroom on my new computer without purchasing it again?

If you created a new Apple ID, you have to purchase the app again. If you can still use the old ID, then you can download it again for free by using that ID. But you will run the risk of locking yourself out of your new Apple ID for 90 days by downloading the app with your old ID and associating the iPad with the old ID.
Is the risk of locking yourself out of your new Apple ID worth not having to pay $.99 again for an app?

Use the new iMac as a display for Mac Pro

The goal is a simple one; use the newest model iMac 27inch as a display for the newest model Mac Pro (desktop tower). The latest Mac Pro has DVI and DisplayPort out and the iMac obviously has thunderbolt, usb, and firewire. I've discovered that there isn't really a way to get thunderbolt on the Mac Pro unless someone knows something I don't. If it's the case that thunderbolt can't be added to the current Mac Pro (be it by a new video card, or otherwise), I'm wondering if I could use a DVI to USB adapter to display it on the iMac.
I guess the takeaway here is that I don't need a virtual solution. Primarily, I use screen sharing via gigabit ethernet to access it. However, when you need a physical hardware monitor (let's say when you restart your machine or need to boot outside of OS X), you can't use the virtual options. I need to be able to use it independantly, like a traditional monitor setup. Any thoughts?

No that will not work. The iMac will not accept video in on using USB, or anything except Thunderbolt.
Best of luck.

With apple TV, can I use my TV as a wireless display for my mac?

I asked a similar question in another forum, and I was told to look into Apple TV. So here I am. If I bought this apple TV, and connected it to my HDTV, would I be able to wirelessly use the TV as a display for my MacBook Pro?

You have to wait until next summer when Apple will introduce Mountain Lion, OS X 10.8 with AirPlay Mirroring, as one of its new features.
Check this and other new features of Mountain Lion at:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/features.html

How to restore from Time Machine WITHOUT install discs using a second Mac

It's a question that is asked repeatedly all over the web by Mac users like me that bought in to Time Machine (TM) on the assumption that if their computer died one day it would be a piece of cake to restore from it, only for that day to come and then to be told "ahh, okay the first thing is to get your computers install discs..." (loud crashing sound of world falling around ears).
I've never been able to afford a new Mac and both of my machines were bought second-hand. Neither came with Leopard (both have Tiger and have been upgraded to Leopard via the net). This was never supposed to be a problem as I've been backing up with TM. However it appears that Tiger discs are as much use as an inflatable dart board when it comes to using TM. So I've been faced with the possibility of having to spend £130 (about two hundred Pres Sheets, Yankees) on the Leopard install discs just so that I can have the option of restoring from TM. Bonkers.
However after much nashing of teeth, a very long weekend learning all sorts of things about 'Target Mode', 'Single User Mode', 'Verbose Mode', 'Open Source 9' etc the following solution has worked without the need to go out and buy those over-priced discs...
What you will need:
1 broken Mac requiring restoration
1 second donor Mac running Leopard (or Snow Leopard so long as the broken Mac can run it)
1 firewire cable with the correct fitting at either end to attach both Macs together
1 Time Machine backup
Note: The following is for when you have given up trying to boot from your hard drive. In my case I couldn't boot in to Safe Mode etc. so was forced to format my drive and re-import everything. If you've read this far I'm assuming your at the same point as well and have tried everything else that's out there first.
Also - both my Macs are Power PC's so can't run Snow Leopard, so I can't say 100% this will work with SL (Intel) machines. From what I've read Snow Leopard will work with this procedure too, but if you've found differently please feel free to add your experiences below...
STEP ONE: Format the corrupt Hard Drive or replace with a fresh HDD
*Link the two computers with a firewire.
*If you're replacing your HDD, remove your corrupted hard drive from the 'broken' machine and insert a new one.
*Power up the broken Mac whilst holding down the 'T' key. This will start it up in Target Mode and you'll get a nice firewire symbol floating around that machine's screen.
*Power up the second 'healthy' Mac. This will be our 'donor' machine. When it starts up after a few seconds you will see the hard drive of the broken Mac appear on the donor Mac's desktop.
*Using your donor Mac's 'Disc Utility', format the broken Mac's hard drive (now's the time to partition it etc. if you want to).
STEP TWO: Clone your donor Mac
Your broken Mac is no longer broken and now needs a new OS. But you don't have the discs, right? Well get this... you can clone your donor mac on to your machine, even if they are totally different i.e. a laptop on to a tower.
*Again using Disc Utility, click on your donor Mac's hard drive. The restore tab appears as an option.
*Click on restore and drag the donor Mac's hard drive that contains the operating system in to the Source box.
*Drag the newly formatted hard drive on the broken Mac in to the Destination box.
*Click restore. Your donor Mac's hard drive will now be 'cloned' on to your no-longer-broken Mac. Once this is done, eject the first Mac's hard drive from your donor Mac's desktop. You no longer need the donor Mac.
Ta daa! Your machine now starts up happy and smily again. Time to restore all that stuff that's been sat on your Time Machine drive...
STEP 3: Restore from Time Machine using Migration Assistant
This is the really clever part that prompted me to write this piece in the first place. Time Machine IS accessible without those Leopard install discs you don't have. You need to use something called 'Migration Assistant'.
*Start up your machine as normal and you'll see it is an exact clone of the donor machine. Weird huh?
*Attach your Time Machine hard drive. It will show up as an icon on the desktop and because of it's size, you'll be asked if you want to use it as a Time Machine backup. Err, NO YOU DON'T! Click 'cancel'.
*Open Migration Assistant (if you can't find it just type it in to Finder and click). There are three options, the middle one being to restore from TM or another disc. Yup, you want that one.
*Migration Assistant will now ask you what you want to restore in stages, firstly User Accounts, then folders, Apps etc. It will even import internet settings
And that's you done. Let Migration Assistant do it's thang... altogether I had about 140gb to restore, so it wasn't exactly speedy. This wasn't helped by the fact that my TM hard drive is connected via USB (yes, I know). Just leave it alone and it'll whirr happily away...
Before I go - you don't have an option of when to restore from, and will restore from the last Time Machine save. At least then you should be able to access TM and go 'backwards' if you need to.
Also - for a Mac expert, the above will be up there with 'Spot Goes To The Farm' in terms of complexity. However, for the rest of us the above is only available in fragments all over the net. By far the most common response to 'how do I restore from Time Machine without install discs' is 'you can't'. If I'd found the above information in one place I could have saved a lot of hair pulling and swearing over the last couple of days, so forgive me for sharing this workaround with the rest of the world. Meanwhile your expertise will come in very handy for the inevitable questions that will get posted below, so please feel free to help those people that won't be sure if this solution is the right one for them. I'm no expert, I just want to help people that were stuck in the same situation (and looking at the web, there's a LOT of them).
Hope this is of use to someone, thanks and *good luck*!

Most maintenance and repair, restore and install procedures require the use
of the correct OS X install DVD; be it an original machine-specific restore/install
disc set or a later retail non-specific general install disc set.
By having an unsupported system, perhaps installed via an illegal download or
other file-sharing scheme, where no retail official discs are involved and the
initial upgrade was done by other means outside of the License Agreements,
you are asking us to discuss a matter of illegal installation and use of a product.
There are no legal complete OS X system download upgrades online; only bits
that are update segments to a retail or as-shipped machine's original OS X install.
+{Or an installation where a previous owner had correct retail upgrade discs, &+
+chose to not include them with the re-sale of the computer it was installed in.}+
However, to answer the initial question. To get and use an externally enclosed
hard drive in suitable boot-capable housing, and get a free-running Clone
Utility (download online; often a donation-ware product, runs free) you can
make a bootable backup of everything in your computer to an external HDD.
This is the way to make a complete backup to restore all functions to the computer.
The Time Machine has some limits, in that it can restore only that which it saves.
It does not make a bootable clone of your entire computer system with apps and
your files, to an external drive device. A clone can. And some of the clone utility's
settings can also backup changes to an external drive's system; if that other drive
is attached to the computer correctly.
Carbon Copy Cloner, from Bombich Software; and also SuperDuper, another of
the most known software names you can download and use to clone boot-capable
system backups of your computer's hard disk drive contents, are often cited.
However you resolve the matter of the running OS X system in your computer,
derived from what appears to be questionable means, is part of the initial issue.
Since you do need to be able to fix an existing installation by unmounting the
computer's hard disk drive and run the computer from the other (install disc or
system clone) while it is Unmounted; and use the correct Disk Utility version to
help diagnose and perhaps be able to fix it. You can't use a Tiger version Disk
Utility to fix a Leopard installation, and so on.
So, the situation and replies as far as they can go (since the matter does
constitute an illegal system, if it was arrived at without correct discs) is a
limited one. And file sharing of copied Mac OS X (and other) software is
also considered illegal.
And, one way to get odd malware and unusual stuff, is to get an unauthorized
system upgrade from an illegal source online. You never know what's inside it.
The other reply was not a personal attack; the matter is of legal status and as
you have a product with a questionable system, the answer is to correct it.
And if you want to save everything in your computer, make a clone to a suitable
externally enclosed self-powered boot capable hard disk drive. With older PPC
Macs, that would best be to one with FireWire and the Oxford-type control chips.
However that works out...
Good luck & happy computing!

Using a 20" iMac as secondary display for another iMac.

I have an older Intel 20" iMac that I'd like to use as a secondary display for a newer 20" iMac. Is that possible?
In my dreamworld, I'd still be able to use the old iMac as a second machine somehow. Ideally I'd be able to leave it running and switch over to it somehow. Am I dreaming or is this somehow possible?

My son no longer uses his old "snowball" iMac (2003) and I may try this as it would a nice (17") second screen.

Using 02/03 PowerBook as supplementary display for MacBook Pro (original)

A friend recently mentioned that i might be able to use my old powerbook as a supplementary display for the newest addition to my Mac family.
can anyone tell me if this is true and if so, how to do it?
Also, i signed up to this site before i upgraded and i have tried changing my profile to reflect the upgrade, but when i post, i still have to change the model and OS fields under the message field... Why is this so?

Wow! this is hectic! thanks for that. but i have a follow up question, i notice it has a limited life for free. how long will the free version last? i am prepareed to pay for it, but as i am a student, cant just yet, i probably need until about December and i'll be right, will it last that long?
also, about the 'model' and 'OS' fields? can they be updated centrally, or do i have to keep changing it every time i ask/answer a question?

Buttons are not displayed for the first time when drawImage method is used

Hi
In my swing window 2 buttons are there and when clicking these buttons, it should display an image . The two buttons are displayed at the first time and I can click on it . While clicking a button , the corresponding image is also got displayed. [ I am using drawImage() function for it] But what the problem is, then the two buttons are not displayed and it will be displayed again when the mouse moves along the position of these two buttons. And this problem occurs only at the first time..When they are on the window on a second time, they won't vanish when the image is displayed when clicking it. Is this the problem with paint() method?. I am using start() method also.
Please help me!
Thank You

Hi
This is not my exact program, that has a large no: of code. So I am putting here a sample one. One thing I would like to point out is that , I can see the buttons at the time of loading the applet and suddenly it vanishes and the image is drawn. Then if I move the mouse along the position of these buttons , they got displayed.
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
/*<applet code = MyClass width = 500 height = 500>
</applet>
public class MyClass extends JApplet
Image img;
JButton b1,b2;
Container cp;
Canvas1 cv;
class Canvas1 extends JPanel
public void paint(Graphics g)
super.paint(g);
g.setColor(Color.black);
g.fillRect(0,0,500,500);
img = getImage(getCodeBase(),"image1.jpeg");
g.drawImage(img,20,20,this);
public void start()
cv = new Canvas1();
cv.setBounds(0,0,500,500);
cp.add(cv);
public void init()
setLayout(null);
cp = getContentPane();
b1 = new JButton("Button1");
b1.setBounds(1,1,100,30);
cp.add(b1);
b2 = new JButton("Button2");
b2.setBounds(200,1,100,30);
cp.add(b2);
It would be very helpful to me if you could fix the problem.
Thank You.

Using my iMac as a main display for a MacBook

I'm thinking about getting myself a MacBook Pro to replace my iMac, which I got in 2008.
My question is, would it be possible to keep my current iMac and connect a MacBook to it, so that the screen of the iMac can be used as a main display for the MacBook?
Thanks for your time

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
only the latest 27" iMacs have a video-in port.
All iMacs prior the these, as your own iMac, only have a video-out port and therefor cannot be used for what you have in mind.
However you might wanna have a look at ScreenRecycler http://www.screenrecycler.com/ScreenRecycler.html which, depending on your useage, may be sufficient.
Regards
Stefan

Using a second Mac as a display for a first

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