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macOS Monterey 12.3: Sidecar is COMPLETELY Gone?

On upgrading to macOS Monterey, I noticed that the Sidecar option was removed from the Preferences window. Frustrating, yes (considering they still advertise it as a feature), but it was added to the "Control Panel" widget thingy in the "Displays" section. OK, that's handy, and I quickly got used to it.


On upgrading to Monterey 12.3, however, this seems to be completely gone. Nothing in the Control Panel. Nothing in Preferences. If you search in the Preferences window for "sidecar" it still highlights "Dock and Menu Bar" as an option... but there's nothing there to choose.


Now... I *do* know that this functionality seems to have been (poorly) replaced by a new option to "Add Display" in the Preferences > Displays option. And that does work fine. BUT... the point of this question is to ask whether it's possible to get it back in the Control Panel.


Last week, I could click Control Panel (in the top-of-screen menu bar), then Displays, then the name of my iPad. Now, that last step is gone. I have to open the full Preferences panel, click "Add Display", select my iPad, and THEN it works.


Is Sidecar being discontinued? Or is Apple just forgetting it exists and trying to make our lives harder? I'm hoping the answer is "neither!" and that there's a switch somewhere to bring back the easy way to add a display. Any ideas, hive mind? Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 24, 2022 10:19 PM

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5 replies

Mar 28, 2022 5:24 PM in response to dialabrain

I don't have an item called "Screen Mirroring" in my Control Panel (assuming you mean System Preferences?). I have a "Displays" item, which does indeed let me add a display to mirror/extend to... but my point is, that's the long way to do this.


I used to have a menu item in the new Control Center (not Control Panel/System Preferences) that allowed me to select a display to extend/mirror to. It was under the "Display" menu, and let me extend my monitor directly from Control Center. Now that items is gone. The only thing I can do is click "Display" and then "Display Preferences", which opens the full control panel.


The whole point is that there used to be a shortcut, and now there's not. And the Sidecar item in System Preferences has been gone since Monterey was released. Seems like they're abandoning the functionality, and I'm not sure why.


Here's my Control Center:


And if I click "Display"...


Wish I could give an example of the old setup, with my display options showing in the second screenshot, but it's long gone since the upgrade.

macOS Monterey 12.3: Sidecar is COMPLETELY Gone?

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