M1 MacBook Pro’s External Display Limitations Are a Joke

Phil0124 wrote:

You are free to offer Apple feedback, but I doubt after 5 years if they have not already added support for more displays that they would want to do it.

click here ➜ Feedback - MacBook Pro - Apple

I'm sure you know this – but for the benefit of other readers …

Apple has added more support for displays. Not retroactively, to machines with plain M1 and M2 chips, in the magical fantasy way the OP wants – but by upgrading the plain M-series chips themselves.

• Plain M1 and M2 chips support two displays, total. In a Mac notebook, one is permanently dedicated to the internal screen, allowing for only one external display.
• Plain M3 chips support two displays, total. But if you close the lid on a Mac notebook with a plain M3 chip, some hardware resources that normally support the built-in screen can drive a second "lid closed" display. This, no doubt, required a bit of extra hardware to handle the switching.
• With the introduction of plain M4 chips, it appears that Apple has upgraded the chips to have a total of three display generators. Mac notebooks with plain M4 chips can drive two external displays with the lid open – a first for any Mac notebooks with plain M-series chips.

MacBook Pro (14-inch, M4, 2024) - Tech Specs - Apple Support

MacBook Air (13-inch, M4, 2025) - Tech Specs - Apple Support

MacBook Air (15-inch, M4, 2025) - Tech Specs - Apple Support

The new features required new hardware – a fact of life. But if Apple had not been interested in making changes, Mac notebooks with plain M4 chips would be limited to one external display. They aren't (see above).

basteno wrote:

.

The argument that this is a hardware limitation is flawed because DisplayLink and InstantView solutions prove the M1 is capable of handling multiple displays. Apple chose not to enable this feature, likely to push users to upgrade to M1 Pro or later models. If the M1 truly couldn’t support more displays, third-party solutions wouldn’t work at all.

No, they prove precisely that you need an external device to support an additional display. What do you think the DisplayLink adapter is doing?

Calling the M1 MacBook Pro an "entry-level" device is misleading, as it was positioned as a professional machine yet shares the same limitations as the MacBook Air. Windows laptops at similar price points support multiple monitors, making this an Apple-specific issue.

You can argue all you want. It's not going to chan ge the fact it does not support more than 1 external monitor.

If you need more than one, then the only option is to upgrade. Or yes, move to Windows laptops.

You are free to offer Apple feedback, but I doubt after 5 years if they have not already added support for more displays that they would want to do it.

click here ➜ Feedback - MacBook Pro - Apple

basteno wrote:

I’ve been a loyal Apple user, but the M1 MacBook Pro’s one-external-monitor limitation is absolutely frustrating—especially for professionals who rely on multiple displays for work.

Apple never clearly advertised this limitation, and after trying multiple DisplayLink adapters, docks, and troubleshooting steps, I finally contacted Apple Support. Their response? "There's no workaround." Seriously?

Pasted from Apple's MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) - Technical Specifications page:

Display Support

Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and:

• One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz

Thunderbolt 3 digital video output

• Native DisplayPort output over USB-C
• VGA, HDMI, DVI, and Thunderbolt 2 output supported using adapters (sold separately)

It's hardly hidden.

It's a hardware limitation. The entry level M1 is precisely that. An entry level CPU which at the time (2020) and being a brand new CPU and architecture did not support more than one external display. Which was made abundantly clear at the time in its tech specs on Apple's website.

This is not something that can be resolved magically by software. It's the hardware that's the limiting factor.

Newer MacBook Pros and even MacBook Airs do support more displays.

But you can't magically make the entre level M1 more powerful to support more displays.

As usual, early adopters should know that some shortcomings are expected when getting the first version of anything.

After 5 years, it would be best to sell the M1 and use the money to buy a newer one that does support more displays if you really really need more than 1 plus its own screen.

Windows Laptops have similar limitations if you buy the entry level version, so no, this is not limited to Macs as much as you'd like to believe it.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/questions/hp-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-8gb-memory-512gb-ssd-natural-silver/6569668/question/2befeb64-29d3-39ba-9117-76a6d80e591e

basteno wrote:

The argument that this is a hardware limitation is flawed because DisplayLink and InstantView solutions prove the M1 is capable of handling multiple displays. Apple chose not to enable this feature, likely to push users to upgrade to M1 Pro or later models. If the M1 truly couldn’t support more displays, third-party solutions wouldn’t work at all.

Your argument is flawed.

DisplayLink and other "stunt box" workarounds are not the same as first-class, hardware-supported video output. The hardware built into the M-series chips is designed to deliver video to attached monitors without lags, without artifacts, frame after frame, without fail, even when very-high-resolution monitors – and the requirement for very high bandwidth connections to those monitors – are involved.

Those "stunt box" workarounds set up virtual screens in software, and then periodically send out updates to an external "stunt box" which decodes the updates. The connections over which these updates travel often have a lot less bandwidth than a USB-C (DisplayPort Alt Mode) or Thunderbolt connection, so the video is squeezed to make it fit into the narrow pipe, which is part of what can account for artifacts and lags.

The software-driven workarounds may also consume more of the host CPU resources than display generators built into the Apple Silicon chip would.

Calling the M1 MacBook Pro an "entry-level" device is misleading, as it was positioned as a professional machine yet shares the same limitations as the MacBook Air. Windows laptops at similar price points support multiple monitors, making this an Apple-specific issue.

It was an entry-level device. Even before Apple switched from Intel processors to Apple Silicon ones, the lower-end 13" MacBook Pros were not all that different from 13" MacBook Airs.

Suggesting users "just sell and upgrade" ignores the fact that many people paid a premium for the M1 MacBook Pro expecting long-term usability. Apple could have provided a software update to improve external monitor support, but instead, they left early adopters stuck with an artificial limitation.

No, they could not have. You cannot add display generator hardware to a M1 chip with a software upgrade.

Ultimately, Apple had a responsibility to either fix this issue or be more transparent about it.

They were completely transparent about it. You chose to ignore the information available to you.

Before selling the M1 MacBook, users should try DisplayLink or other workarounds, which prove that Apple intentionally restricted this feature.

Those second-class workarounds prove nothing of the sort.

basteno wrote:

Dear Mr. "Apple Spokesman",

I am just a disgruntled customer looking for a solution. If you work for Apple and have one, I’m listening. If not, do what everyone else is doing—upvote or downvote—and move on.

Clearly, I’m not the only one facing this issue, and dismissing it won’t change that.

You have a NICE DAY SIR!!

This is a user-to-user technical help community. Non of us are an "Apple Spokesman". Apple is not here so Apple will not see your posts. You referred to yourself as a "professional" needing certain functionality/capability of your computer. As a "professional" I would hope that when purchasing tools you would do a little research to ensure what you are purchasing meeting your "professional" needs. It is clear you did not do your "professional" research and the result is you have a computer that does not meet your requirements. This is not Apple's fault. Apple produces computers having different levels of capability. One needs to purchase the level of computer that meets their needs.

I suggest that if you need a computer that supports multiple monitors that you now buy a computer having the specifications meeting your needs.

Apple-Silicon 2020 M4, M3, M2, and M1 13-in MacBook Pro and Air and similar models with M-series (plain) processors are extremely-capable entry-level computers. They can support the internal display AND an External display up to the previously unheard of size of the Apple 6K display at billions of colors. But only ONE in addition to the internal display.

This may not match the way older computers forced you to work, since older computers were not able to support a really large external display. But it is NOT a defect. The spec was available long before you could purchase the computer.

The Apple standard for its built-in hardware-accelerated displays, makes them suitable for full-motion video for production/display of cinema-quality video with NO dropped frames, and NO dropouts or partial-blank scan lines due to memory under-runs or other issues. This requires a hardware rasterizer/display-generator for each fully-accelerated display, supported by Huge memory bandwidth to refresh each display 60 or more times a second.

If you need more hardware-accelerated displays than the built-in and ONE external display, and an un-accelerated iPad if desired, you probably need a more capable computer.

MacBook Pro M3 (base) models with 14-in display supports the same ONE external display.

On the MacBook AIR M3 (base) models with 13-in or 15-in displays, you can close that lovely display you paid dearly for, and use the display generator for a second external display, INSTEAD OF (NOT in addition to) the Internal display.

If you are doing ONLY program listings, spreadsheets, stock quotes and other slow to change data, there are some other solutions, but they require you to make some strong compromises.

Executive summary: More than ONE additional Hardware-accelerated display can NOT be added to the entry-level 13-in or 15-in M1 or M2 or M3 or M4 systems.

basteno wrote:

I’ve been a loyal Apple user, but the M1 MacBook Pro’s one-external-monitor limitation is absolutely frustrating—especially for professionals who rely on multiple displays for work.

Apple never clearly advertised this limitation

Incorrect. Apple clearly stated it in the Technical Specifications that were available on their Web site before you purchased the machine.

, and after trying multiple DisplayLink adapters, docks, and troubleshooting steps, I finally contacted Apple Support. Their response? "There's no workaround." Seriously?

There are second-class workarounds, involving DisplayLink and the like – but there is no way for you to add first-class hardware-supported video outputs.

Those are generated by hardware that is part of the main System-on-Chip. All evidence suggests that a plain M1 processor – the lowest-end M-series processor that Apple ever released – supports a maximum of two displays. On the 13" M1 MacBook Pro, one of those outputs is dedicated full-time to the internal screen (whether the lid is open or shut), leaving exactly one to drive an external display.

Which is exactly what Apple disclosed up-front.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

"Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and:

One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz"

That one display can be a very-high-resolution one – a 32" Apple Pro Display XDR which has a resolution of 6016 by 3384 pixels – nearly TEN TIMES as many pixels as a 24" 1080p display has. But the way that the hardware on the chip is arranged, there can be only one.

It's absurd that a "Pro" device in 2020 lacks basic multi-monitor support when cheaper Windows laptops handle this with ease. Even more frustrating, later models (M1 Pro, M1 Max, M2) fixed this issue, but M1 users are left stranded.

The M1 Pro and M1 Max chips are higher-end chips that have more display generators than a plain M1 chip. They took longer to appear than the plain M1 chip (a little thing called "time to market") – and they also cost more.

If you are claiming that Mac notebooks with plain M2 chips support more than one external display, you would be incorrect. The plain M2 chip has the same limitation on the total number of displays as the plain M1 chip does.

Apple needs to either update macOS to support multiple monitors on M1 or at least acknowledge and support third-party solutions like DisplayLink.

There is no update to macOS that can add more hardware-supported video outputs to the M1 chip.

This is not like the case of Mac notebooks with plain M3 chips, where

• MacBook Pros with plain M3 chips came out first, with an advertised limit of one external display.
• MacBook Airs with plain M3 chips then came out, with the ability to drive a second external display when (and only when) their lids were closed.
• A macOS update later brought the same feature to MacBook Pros with plain M3 chips.

In that case, it is clear that hardware support for switching one of the chip's two display outputs between a built-in screen and an external display was ready from the very beginning. The only reason that the Sonoma update could add the "lid closed" display feature to MacBook Pros with plain M3 chips was that the hardware was already there, unadvertised, just waiting for macOS to provide the proper drivers to use it.

Mac notebooks with plain M4 chips can drive two external displays with their lids open. This feature upgrade, too, is one that depended on hardware. There is no macOS change that could have added this feature, in the absence of new circuitry on the new chips.

This is a huge oversight for anyone who bought the M1 MacBook Pro thinking it could handle professional workflows.

The "huge oversight" was your own.