Setting up a second monitor/TV from an iMac

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Level 1

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Setting up a second monitor/TV from an iMac

I have a mid-2010 iMac running 10.13 and wanted to do something relatively easy.

I'm taking online classes streamed via EweToob. On my iMac I have the screen split into two windows - the left one running the EweToob classes and the right half running Google Earth.

I wanted to transfer the Google Earth window over to an external TV (not a 4K model) so I acquired a mini-DVI to HDMI cable and plugged both ends in.

I made sure that "mirroring" was turned off... all I want on the TV is the right-hand side of my iMac's window. But even with this relatively simple set-up I still can't my TV to display just the right-hand side of my iMac's screen.

Someone mentioned that if I had the right-hand screen sized to fit in one half of my iMac's total screen, I wouldn't be able to move the right-hand screen off to the TV so I tried re-sizing the Google Earth screen so that it took up less than 1/2 half of my iMac's 1/2 screen.

Shouldn't I be able to just drag the right-hand page off to the right and on to my TV? I've gone through all kinds of contortions but can't seem to get it to work.

Any help would be sorely appreciated.

Thanks.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Sep 18, 2021 5:04 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Mal-S

Level 5

5,062 points

Sep 18, 2021 5:52 AM in response to bondmaster

Go to System Preferences -> Display —> Arrangement and click and hold on the monitor without the menu bar at the top, drag the monitor to the other side. You can adjust up and down so the mouse traverses cleanly between the screens.

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Answer 2

Sep 18, 2021 9:11 AM in response to bondmaster

bondmaster wrote:

I made sure that "mirroring" was turned off...

I still can't my TV to display just the right-hand side of my iMac's screen.

Mirroring is turned off. You can not have the single window displayed on both the iMac display right side and the external TV at the same time. You can mirror the entire screen, or none of it.

In extended display mode, if you enter a full-screen display for a particular application, and it takes over the main monitor with the Menu and Dock, then you can swap which monitor that is by dragging the little white bar itself from one blue monitor icon to the other. This changes which monitor is used for full-screen presentation mode in some applications that might not be dual-monitor aware.

Mirroring options in the menu bar:

Firefox running Google Earth on a Samsung TV via HDMI adapter from the 2010 iMac in reflection.

PS - when I run my screen saver to show photos in dual monitor extended desktop mode, at first it seems like they are mirroring the same photos, but after a while they do start to show different images in the screen saver.

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Answer 3

bondmaster Author

Level 1

11 points

Sep 20, 2021 4:27 AM in response to Mal-S

Thanks... will give that a try.

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Setting up a second monitor/TV from an iMac

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