Caveats of using macOS with an external monitor

Fixing LG Monitors

LG produces good monitors, but they pack them with “Smart Features” that make picture quality worse.

Go to the monitor menu and:

• Disable «Super Resolution» to prevent everything from becoming blurry.
• Disable «Smart Energy Saving» to prevent the screen from self-managing brightness.

Controlling Monitor from macOS

By default, you can’t control the monitor from your Mac; you will need to reach your monitor by hand. This is especially annoying with sound. There are apps for controlling monitors from the OS instead of the menu.

There is a free app called MonitorControl that allows you to control brightness and sound the same way you do it on a MacBook.

Waking up Mac

If you have ever used Windows you know: if your cat jumps on the computer’s keyboard — it will wake up.

On macOS — forget about that! To wake a MacBook when using an external monitor you need to swipe on the Magic Trackpad or shake the mouse.