What cables do I need for MacBook Air M4 dual monitors?

Been trying all sorts of cable combinations, to no avail. I can get my dual monitors to mirror but not extend. When I go to Displays only the built-in and one of the other displays shows up in the Arrange window. The Dell docking station works fine with my other Windows setup and extends the monitors. Do I need a Thunderbolt3 or 4 set up?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: MacBook Air M4 extended monitors

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Sep 8, 2025 6:04 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 8, 2025 6:53 PM

What type of docking station are you using?


Macs only support connecting one monitor to a plain USB-C dock, or two monitors to a Thunderbolt dock. If you are using a dock that lets you connect more monitors than this at once, it is likely that it drives some of its monitor outputs using either

  • the equivalent of DisplayPort MST daisy-chaining – which Macs do not support, or
  • some second-class workaround that requires installation of a special driver to get any output at all


When a dock uses MST to drive multiple monitors, a very common symptom is that

  • it feeds the same signal to two monitors, so the monitors appear to be "mirroring"
  • the Mac only detects a single monitor

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 8, 2025 6:53 PM in response to Surfnutz

What type of docking station are you using?


Macs only support connecting one monitor to a plain USB-C dock, or two monitors to a Thunderbolt dock. If you are using a dock that lets you connect more monitors than this at once, it is likely that it drives some of its monitor outputs using either

  • the equivalent of DisplayPort MST daisy-chaining – which Macs do not support, or
  • some second-class workaround that requires installation of a special driver to get any output at all


When a dock uses MST to drive multiple monitors, a very common symptom is that

  • it feeds the same signal to two monitors, so the monitors appear to be "mirroring"
  • the Mac only detects a single monitor

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What cables do I need for MacBook Air M4 dual monitors?

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