BetterDisplay Pro

Custom resolutions, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, Picture in Picture, soft disconnect, configuration and EDID overrides, DDC control, colour mode selection, syncing, layout protection, and more.

Download the current v5.x release for macOS 26 Tahoe, macOS 27 Golden Gate

v4.3.6 - Sequoia, Sonoma, Ventura | v3.5.6 | v2.3.9 - Monterey | v1.4.15 - Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur | Browse all

BetterDisplay app screenshot on macOS desktop

BetterDisplay is a truly wonderful tool! It lets you convert your displays to fully scalable screens, manage display configuration overrides, allows brightness and colour control, provides XDR/HDR brightness upscaling (extra brightness), full dimming to black, helps you create and manage virtual screens for your Mac, create Picture in Picture windows from your displays, and gives you a host of other features to manage your display settings, like display and colour modes, easily from the menu bar. It can even disconnect/reconnect displays on-the-fly!

FEATURE-PACKED

  • Enable Night Shift for your TV.
  • Fine-tune your screen with sharpening, geometry, and advanced colour adjustments.
  • Apply custom 3D LUTs to your display or PIP and streaming video filters.
  • Define favorite resolutions and reach them from the app menu, resolution slider, or keyboard shortcuts.
  • macOS Shortcuts (App Intents) support for many operations.
  • Keep selected windows or window groups in view with Picture in Picture.
  • The only app with DDC control support across all modern Macs, including Apple Silicon built-in HDMI ports and the 2018 Mac mini built-in HDMI port.
  • Change resolution quickly with a slider.
  • Control TV volume, mute, power, and inputs with HDMI-CEC on compatible connections.
  • Layout protection with anchor points for natural traversal between screens in adaptive display arrangements.
  • Direct upscaling for built-in XDR displays on macOS 26.3+.
  • CLI and app integration features including command-line tools, betterdisplaycli, custom URL schema, HTTP, and notifications.
  • Advanced keyboard shortcuts support.
  • Choose a Control Center-style sidebar with the refreshed Liquid Glass interface.
  • Convert internal and natively connected external displays to flexibly scaled HiDPI displays, including notch, HDR, HDCP, and high refresh support.
  • Use your iPad or monitor as a DIY teleprompter.
  • Change brightness, volume, and colours via software and hardware DDC control using sliders, native shortcuts, or custom shortcuts.
  • Colour profile and XDR preset selector.
  • Nits-based normalised brightness syncing across displays.
  • Run CLI commands and view app logs in the built-in console.
  • Protect display configuration, including resolution, refresh rate or VRR, rotation, and colour profile.
  • Simplify creating mirrored display sets.
  • Colour mode selector and unexposed refresh rates for Apple Silicon Macs, including RGB, YCbCr, chroma subsampling, and HDMI range settings.
  • Keyboard shortcuts for brightness and audio control.
  • Reach full XDR or HDR brightness potential with upscaling up to 1600 nits on XDR displays and display-dependent boosts on external HDR screens.
  • Quickly accessible refresh rate and screen rotation menus.
  • Inspect display connection, bandwidth, and compression details with expanded diagnostics.
  • Display groups and synchronization features to match brightness and other image controls across multiple displays.
  • Change display inputs using DDC on supported displays.
  • HDR-capable and high-refresh-rate virtual screens (requires compatible Macs).
  • Auto-switch colour profiles for SDR and HDR modes.
  • Expanded translations, with right-to-left layouts for Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian.
  • Optionally auto-disconnect the built-in screen when connecting an external display on Apple Silicon Macs.
  • Use headless Macs with any resolution and HiDPI mode for remote access.
  • Customise Picture in Picture and streaming with video filters and target frame rates.
  • Higher quality macOS Zoom accessibility output and high-quality screenshots even on 1080p displays.
  • EDID override support for both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
  • Built-in LG webOS TV, Samsung Tizen TV, Philips Android TV, and Yamaha AVR networked control support.
  • Disconnect and reconnect displays on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
  • Use the lower half of your TV as an off-centre widescreen workspace.
  • Custom OSD styles, including a classic-style OSD option for macOS Tahoe reinterpreted for glass.
  • Arrange displays visually from the app menu with on-screen guides and grid snapping.
  • Create custom HiDPI resolutions for real displays and redefine advanced system display parameters.
  • Apply filters directly to your screen using self-streaming and video filter windows.
  • Forced HDR switch mode for some displays to achieve high refresh rate/high resolution HDR.
  • Help reduce visible display flickering from PWM and temporal dithering.
  • Create any number of virtual screens with different aspect ratios and resolutions.
  • Redirect display contents from real or virtual screens to another screen with local streaming.
  • Display UI scale matching to synchronize UI scale and resolution among multiple displays.
  • Supports both Colour Table (Apple Silicon) and Metal methods (Apple Silicon and Intel).
  • Create a Picture in Picture window for any real display or virtual screen.
  • Scaled Sidecar resolutions and portrait Sidecar support through virtual screen streaming.
  • Run per-display shell scripts and URLs on connect, disconnect, sleep, or wake.
  • Export display EDID and view detailed display information on Intel and Apple Silicon.
  • DDC auto-configuration that detects and configures capabilities automatically.
Feature Free Pro
Flexible HiDPI scaling Not includedIncluded
Multiple brightness-control methods IncludedIncluded
Native brightness and volume keys IncludedIncluded
DDC brightness control IncludedIncluded
DDC volume control IncludedIncluded
Direct XDR brightness upscaling on compatible Apple Silicon Macs Not includedIncluded
Colour-table XDR/HDR brightness upscaling on Apple Silicon Not includedIncluded
Metal XDR/HDR brightness upscaling on Apple Silicon and Intel Not includedIncluded
Brightness upscaling for compatible third-party HDR displays Not includedIncluded
Dimming to black IncludedIncluded
Combined hardware and software dimming IncludedIncluded
Software dimming through colour tables IncludedIncluded
Software dimming through overlays IncludedIncluded
Resolution slider IncludedIncluded
Custom scaled-resolution editing IncludedIncluded
Refresh rate selector IncludedIncluded
Display mode selector IncludedIncluded
Display connection and disconnection Not includedIncluded
Visual display arrangement with on-screen guides¹ IncludedIncluded
Display configuration protection Not includedIncluded
Adaptive layout protection and advanced layout management¹ Not includedIncluded
Custom display groups Not includedIncluded
Basic brightness syncing IncludedIncluded
Normalised brightness syncing in nits Not includedIncluded
Advanced brightness and image-adjustment syncing Not includedIncluded
Resolution syncing and UI scale matching Not includedIncluded
Mirroring configuration and protection Not includedIncluded
Sharpening, geometry, and advanced colour filters Not includedIncluded
Advanced software colour adjustments Not includedIncluded
Software colour temperature control Not includedIncluded
Software contrast adjustment IncludedIncluded
Colour profile and XDR preset selection IncludedIncluded
Automatic colour profile switching between SDR and HDR Not includedIncluded
Custom 3D LUTs for displays and PIP/stream filters Not includedIncluded
Virtual screen creation IncludedIncluded
Picture-in-picture for physical displays and virtual screens Not includedIncluded
PIP/stream capture of selected windows or window groups Not includedIncluded
Full-screen local streaming Not includedIncluded
Custom virtual screen configurations Not includedIncluded
HDR and high-refresh-rate virtual screens on compatible Macs Not includedIncluded
Virtual screen association with displays IncludedIncluded
Video Filter Windows and full-screen video filters Not includedIncluded
Target frame-rate controls for PIP and streaming Not includedIncluded
PIP/stream stretching and positioning Not includedIncluded
PIP/stream cropping Not includedIncluded
PIP/stream rotation and portrait Sidecar Not includedIncluded
Teleprompter mode through stream flipping Not includedIncluded
Compositor rendering for Video Filter Windows Not includedIncluded
DDC control on supported Apple Silicon connections IncludedIncluded
DDC control on supported Intel connections IncludedIncluded
DDC capability detection and automatic configuration IncludedIncluded
DDC input switching IncludedIncluded
DDC power control IncludedIncluded
DDC contrast control IncludedIncluded
DDC colour-channel gain control IncludedIncluded
HDMI-CEC TV control, including CLI access IncludedIncluded
LG webOS TV control IncludedIncluded
Samsung Tizen TV control IncludedIncluded
Philips Android TV control IncludedIncluded
Yamaha AVR control IncludedIncluded
Night Shift support for TVs IncludedIncluded
Graphical user interface IncludedIncluded
Optional sidebar layout and menu bar right-click actions IncludedIncluded
Basic custom keyboard shortcuts IncludedIncluded
Advanced custom keyboard shortcuts Not includedIncluded
Native or custom OSDs (depending on macOS version) IncludedIncluded
Refined OSD styling and Traditional OSD option IncludedIncluded
Brightness output in nits on the OSD Not includedIncluded
Display name overrides IncludedIncluded
macOS Shortcuts integration through App Intents² IncludedIncluded
Command-line interface² IncludedIncluded
Built-in console with CLI access and app logs² IncludedIncluded
Standard control integration through scripts, URLs, and notifications IncludedIncluded
Per-display actions on connect, disconnect, sleep, and wake IncludedIncluded
HTTP and custom URL scheme integration² IncludedIncluded
User-defined custom integration and DDC controls Not includedIncluded
Prevent system sleep while a specified display is connected Not includedIncluded
Native and default resolution overrides IncludedIncluded
Colour mode selection on supported Apple Silicon configurations IncludedIncluded
Additional and NTSC refresh rates on compatible Apple Silicon Macs IncludedIncluded
Forced HDR switching for supported display modes Not includedIncluded
HDR extra-brightness calibration Not includedIncluded
Expanded filter syncing and manual group UI scale matching Not includedIncluded
EDID overrides on Apple Silicon and Intel Not includedIncluded
EDID retrieval and export IncludedIncluded
Expanded display information and diagnostic reports IncludedIncluded
Per-display ambient light readings on supported hardware IncludedIncluded
DisplayLink DDC and colour control, where supported IncludedIncluded
DDC through built-in HDMI on M1 Macs and the entry-level M2 Mac mini IncludedIncluded
DDC through the 2018 Intel Mac mini’s built-in HDMI port IncludedIncluded
DDC input customisation IncludedIncluded
External HUD and notch-app integration IncludedIncluded
Experimental cursor exclusion from stream target displays Not includedIncluded

Availability depends on your Mac, macOS version, display, and connection.

¹ Visual arrangement is free. Some advanced grid-snap options and layout protection require Pro.

² Automation interfaces are free to access; operations controlling Pro features still require Pro.

Support development.
Unlock all features.
Get Pro.

Start with the 14-day trial, all features unlocked.
Then get a Pro licence for full access to the current major app version – or continue with free features.

  • With the Pro licence, you get full access (see what's included) to the current major version of the app.
  • Your purchase also includes at least one year of free updates, including any major version upgrade.
  • The Pro licence is perpetual (not a subscription), so the versions you unlock are yours to keep and use.
  • Business users are required to purchase a licence to use any (free or Pro) features beyond the trial.
  • Licences, licence delivery, recovery, trial, and activation are provided by Paddle.
  • More information on purchasing a Pro licence: Getting a Pro Licence.
  • Consult the Licence Terms & Conditions, Refund Policy, and Privacy Policy before purchase.

Ready to improve your Mac display experience?

Download BetterDisplay, upgrade to Pro, and explore the community on GitHub.