A powerhouse display utility for Mac that finally speaks Chinese and solves the three biggest headaches of external monitors—blurry text, unreachable brightness keys, and broken iPad Sidecar.
What Is BetterDisplay?
BetterDisplay is a macOS-native tool built to tame every screen Apple (or anyone else) throws at you. Think smooth HiDPI scaling, HDR & HDCP passthrough, high-refresh-rate switching, and instant rotation—all from a menu-bar extra.
After months of hunting for an app that could make my 2 K panel look Retina-sharp, let me dim it with the keyboard, and resurrect single-display Sidecar, this is the only utility that survived my login-items purge.
Why It’s Worth Your Time
- 30+ pro features in one app—yet the core fixes are free.
- Constant updates: day-one support for Apple Silicon and macOS sequoia.
The Three Problems It Fixed for Me
1. Fuzzy External Monitors on M1/M2
Apple disables HiDPI on sub-4 K displays. Plug a 2560×1440 panel into a Mac mini and macOS serves soft, pixel-doubled ugliness. BetterDisplay unlocks true scaled Retina modes (e.g., 1920×1080 HiDPI) with one click—text snaps into focus like putting on glasses.
2. Keyboard Brightness Keys That Do Nothing
My Mac-layout mechanical keyboard has brightness ???? keys, but they’re dead outside a MacBook. Enable “DDC” in BetterDisplay, flip the monitor’s DDC/CI switch to ON, and those keys now control backlight, contrast, even color temperature—no extra drivers.
3. Sidecar That Quits When You Power Off the Main Screen
Recent macOS builds force you to keep the physical display alive for Sidecar. Work-around: create a dummy 2388×1668 Retina screen inside BetterDisplay, mirror it to the iPad, then shut the real monitor. macOS thinks a display is still attached; Sidecar stays live.
Install in 30 Seconds
Grab the latest release from the project’s GitHub page, drag BetterDisplay into Applications, launch. That’s it—no kexts, no SIP disabling.
Free vs. Pro
Everything above is 100 % free. Pro adds multi-dummy management, custom resolutions, EDID override, CLI scripting and corporate MDM hooks. For most users (myself included) the free tier is already overkill.