Macbook Pro – Make an external monitor your primary display

Recently, I got a mac laptop at work, which is sup[er sweet, but I wanted to hook it up to a real monitor, keyboard and mouse. All very easy things to do. The problem I had was that the laptop was acting as the primary monitor. Every application that I drug over to the secondary monitor worked great, but the application tool bar was still on the laptop.. annoying.

I did a quick Google search to see if there was a solution to the problem. There was, and it’s dead simple to put into action.

Connect the external monitor

  • Start up the “System Preferences” app
  • Click on “Display Preferences”
  • Within Display Preferences, choose Arrangement. You should see two blue squares that represent each display, main and secondary. On the main display you’ll notice a bar along the top.
  • Click and drag this bar from the Main Display to the Secondary Display.
  • Close Display Preferences
  • That’s it!