Hi, I'm Bob Boerner.
I'm one of the product support engineers at Plugable Technologies, and what I'd
like to do today is demonstrate some of the different display mirroring
options available when using a Mac.
So what is that?
And.
Why would that be useful?
Well, let's take a look at what I have on my desk here.
I have an Apple Mac Mini 2020 model with an M1 processor connected to a pluggable
UD-6950Z dual 4K display docking station.
I've got two LG 4K displays connected to the dock and I actually have
a portable, um, ViewSonic display connected directly to one of the
Thunderbolt ports on the back of Mac.
And the reason this works that I can have these three external displays is because
of the displaying technology in this dock.
But what I wanna show is, first of all, that each of these displays is unique.
They are an extension of the desktop, and I can do that.
I've got this application window open.
It's a text edit window, and I can move that between all the displays to show that
they are in fact, unique and extensions.
But what if I don't want or need that?
What if I want to make it so that one or more of these displays is
a mirror image of one another?
Well, let me show you how you can do that.
Let me change my view so you can see my desktop and still see what's
happening on all the displays.
The way you can change this is by coming down to system preferences,
clicking on that, and then clicking on the displays option.
And Mac OS will show a visual representation of all three
displays connected to the Mac.
If I hover the pointer over each display, I'll see a little, uh,
popup or balloon note that tells me what the display name is.
It says that this display here on the left is LG Ulta HD #1.
Display on the right up here is LG Ultra HD display #2 and the portable
ViewSonic display, which is a VG 1655 model, is the third display down here.
And these individual boxes are representations of the fact that
each is an extension of the overall desktop and they are unique.
But what if I don't want that?
What if I want all of them to show the same thing to be mirrors of one another.
Well, there's a couple ways to do it, but the way I like to do it is I can click
on this display over here on the on the right and say mirror for LG Ultra HD #1.
Now remember, this display is LG Ultra HD #1, and when I do that, you'll see
that now I'm seeing the identical image on both displays, and when I move one
window, you can see it move on the other because it's a mirror, and what
Mac OS is doing is showing those two displays stacked on top of one another to
indicate that they are in fact mirrors.
All right.
What if I want to take that a step further?
If I want to take the ViewSonic portable display and mirror that I can simply
right click on it and say mirror for LG Ultra HD #1, and now all three
displays are showing the same thing, and now they're all stacked together
to indicate they're all mirrors.
If I move an application window on one, it moves on all three.
All right.
That could be useful if, say you had multiple displays connected to a system.
Facing, for example, different directions at a presentation and you
wanted everybody to see the same thing.
Okay?
What if I wanna undo this?
I can just simply right click on the stack and select stop mirroring.
And in just a moment, everything should go back to the way it was originally and
that they all are extensions and unique.
So if I move my application window again, you can see them see the
application window move back and forth.
All right, well what else could you do with this?
You can selectively mirror displays.
They don't always have to be the primary display and the system.
For example, let's say I'm gonna move my application window over here to LG
display #2, and I want this display and this display to be mirrors of one another.
Let's say for example, I was in a customer service situation.
I had two displays on my desk, but I had one display facing the customer,
and I wanted them to see exactly what was on my one display but not the other.
All right, the way you can do that.
Let's come over here and now instead of mirroring for LG display #1,
which is over here, I'm gonna mirror for LG, LG Ultra HD display #2.
So when I do that, now these two are mirrored and it shows them stacked
to represent that and if I move the application window, you can see
that these two are the mirror now.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put this back and stop the mirroring.
Just to put everything back the way it was for a moment.
While that's not the most exciting thing in and of itself, depending on what your
specific task is or what you need to do, the fact that Mac OS allows you to
selectively mirror things in whichever way that you want, something that Windows
can't do, can be actually very useful depending on what you need to accomplish.
Now if you found that interesting or useful, please be sure to
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