Only one Display with macOS and iPad (SideCar)

[bendietze]

Hey, thanks so much for this software!

I use BetterDisplay with my Mac and my iPad as a headless display. For this I have a minimal second virtual screen, on which I mirror my iPad during SideCar connection, so that I only have one display in total and can not slide out of the screen with the mouse.

Can I pair the virtual display with the iPad instead so that either the virtual display or my iPad is active? So that the Mac doesn't have another virtual screen? Just to have virtual Display OR iPad screen, depending on SideCar connection or not?

Thanks to BetterDisplay I can already run macOS without a physical monitor, now I would also like to exchange the iPad and the virtual display with each other so that there is never an unused virtual display.

[waydabber]

Yes, if you associate the virtual screen to the Sidecar display and under association settings you configure it in a way that the virtual screen is only connected when the associated display is not present, it might work (but I am not entirely sure as the feature was not envisioned in a way that no other displays are present).

[bendietze]

I tried this, but the virtual displays stays connected while SideCar is running. When i manually disconnect the virtual display macOS drops the SideCar connection because it has no Monitor.

Are there any other settings I have to pay attention to? Or maybe I can pair the virtual display in another way so that it disappears when the iPad is there? Everything i found drops at least when i manually disconnect the virtual display, and the virtual display always stays connected when SideCar runs.

[waydabber]

Oh but then you need the virtual screen so the Sidecar keeps going, right? Honestly I did not really investigate the issue of running a Sidecar-only setup (without an actual monitor). I think Apple did not really envisioned Sidecar to be used as a primary display, but I have some memories of reading about workarounds for that.

[bendietze]

Yes, that's not intended, but I know countless people looking for it. True, that means that even if the virtual display would turn off, Apple would drop the SideCar connection. Ok, then I'll mirror the iPad further on the virtual screen, but I wanted to place a question here.

Thank you for your support 👍🏻

[bendietze]

btw... if you find some useful workarounds i would love to know about

[waydabber]

I'll leave this open as this might be interesting to others + if there is an other workaround (besides the virtual screen solution) it can be posted here.