Apple has lengthy provided a laptop computer possibility if you need to use simply an exterior show in mirrored mode and never view the inner monitor. You’ll be able to shut the clamshell lid, and your separate display continues to work. However what if you wish to have exterior gadgets lively and don’t want a show? One reader, as an illustration, needs to maintain a webcam lively however shut their laptop computer’s lid.

Apple doesn’t present a “headless’ possibility, and I can’t discover third-party software program designed for client fashions. It could be undoable.

You’ll be able to maintain the lid opened just a little bit and set it in order that its show dims after a brief interval:

• In Monterey or earlier, go to System Preferences > Battery, and within the Energy Adapter view, examine “Stop your Mac from mechanically sleeping when the show is off.”
• In Ventura, go to System Settings > Shows, click on Superior, after which allow “Stop computerized sleeping on energy adapter when the show is off.”

An alternative choice is to connect a tiny, cheap exterior show and set the identical particulars as above. As an illustration, this $60 7-inch show designed for gaming and Raspberry techniques would work.

It will probably appear just a little ridiculous to connect a $100, 10-inch monitor to your multi-hundred or thousand-dollar-plus laptop computer to have it maintain working, but when it does the trick for what you want, your downside is solved. Notice you possibly can’t simply flip the facility off on the exterior show: it is going to seem as unavailable to macOS and change show management again to the inner display.

This Mac 911 article is in response to a query submitted by Macworld reader Me.

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