Using Different Display Resolutions With Your Mac

You can set your display resolution to what you think looks best for your eyes and your use. Don't let anyone tell you that you should only use a particular resolution and don't worry too much about the performance warning.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Do you have trouble reading things on your screen? Well, you may just simple want to adjust the resolution of your display.
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Now this is actually a very controversial topic. I'm not sure why because it is just a setting that you can change. Just because somebody else chooses a different display resolution than you doesn't effect you. Different people are going to prefer to have their displays look differently and also people's eyes vary greatly. There are people who have perfect vision who have no problem viewing screens at any resolution. Other people that need to wear glasses and even with glasses they have difficulty seeing computer screens sometimes. So just because one screen resolution works great for you doesn't mean you should tell everybody that's the only one they should be using. 
Now my screen usually looks like this when I'm doing tutorials. But I would never use my screen at this resolution. I'm actually using a resolution where the screen is 1280 by 720, which at 27 inches makes everything very large. But if I made it any smaller  then it would be difficult to see some of the items, like the menu items here at the top of the screen when you're viewing this as a video on a webpage. I see other tutorials online that constantly make the mistake of having their screen resolutions set to something more normal but then you can't see what is going on when you watch the tutorial or you're forced to go into full screen mode with the video tutorial to actually see things. 
If I go to System Settings and then to Displays I can select my display here and I could see just five options. There is a default option here which is actually twice the resolution that I'm using now. That's 1440 vertically. That's because I'm using the Apple  Studio display which is 2880 pixels high. So perfect retina display is 4X which means that I'll have 1440. But I'm actually using something that is not even listed here as my screen resolution. So at 720 high just for these tutorials. I don't work that way normally. Normally I would work usually at the default which looks like this. Now you can see how much smaller the menu items here at the top look. How much harder that is to view in a tutorial. But it may be good for you working with the same screen I've got. 
What you should set your screen to really depends on how well you can see things. So if these menu items look too small then you want to go something to the left, like this. You can see how it makes the menu items larger. Or even larger if you need to. You can actually get some more options than just the five here by using the Control Key, clicking, and you have Show List. I've got more than the five different options there. As a matter of fact you can go all the way to the maximum which makes everything super tiny and almost impossible for anybody to see the menu items here at the top. You can go to the default here. You can choose the one I use when I shoot my videos, or you can choose something in-between like this.
Now note when you're using anything except the default you're going to see the message, Using the scale resolution may affect performance. May being the primary term there. For most things it's not going to affect the performance at all especially if you have a newer Mac. If you're using Pages to do word processing then it is not really going to matter performance wise. Maybe if you're playing a game or if you're working with 3D graphics or really large Photoshop documents, things like that, maybe then you might see a slight performance change. But what's more important? Being able to see what you're doing or getting a little bit more performance out of your Mac's GPU's. 
So I would never NOT choose one of these because I'm afraid of a performance change. At the very least I would choose the resolution that seems about right for me, like that. But then if I think I detect a performance difference then try it in default and see if the tradeoff is worth it. Never just assume that the performance difference is more important than you being able to actually get things done. After all the main performance bottleneck is usually you being able to see what you're doing, being able to manipulate the pointer, being able to read what is on the screen, being able to drag and drop things, and so on. 
Also notice how easy it is to change these. So if you do have a particular app that seems like it works a little bit better at default, well, then change your screen to default when using that app. But otherwise leave it somewhere else where your eyes are more comfortable. Don't ever let somebody else tell you what resolution you should have your screen set to. I'm not going to tell you that any of these are better than any of the others. They are all there for a reason because each one maybe the best for certain people with different vision capabilities and preferences. 
Now also keep in mind that just because you changed the resolution here, so perhaps you make the menu items bigger, so perhaps in the Finder you can see the items here in the left sidebar or the names of folders and files better, doesn't mean that you have to have the same size inside the apps. For instance, I have Pages open here. So let's say I've got the resolution set to this and this looks great. But if I go to a higher resolution, like the default, now this looks too small. Well, you can go and zoom in here to make the text bigger for Pages. So you still have complete control over the size of things inside the content of a document. The same thing for webpages. This is what it looks like here but let's say if I went to a different resolution, like this, if this is too big I could always use View, Zoom In or Out, or the keyboard shortcuts for that, to change the resolution of what I see in the browser. So think of the resolution for the interface elements, like the menu bar, and the resolution for documents or webpages as being separate things that you can control independently. 
Keep in mind that what you see here for different resolutions is really going to depend on how many pixels your screen has. I know a lot of people still choose cheap 1440 screens for their Macs. When you do so you're not getting that many pixels. It's considerably less pixels than say a 4K screen. So there is only going to be so many choices here before your at the maximum resolution, usually of 2560 by 1440. A 4K screen will give you more options and, of course, a 5K screen gives you the maximum amount of options like I've got here. But you are definitely limiting yourself when you are getting a 1440 screen, which is one of the reasons I don't recommend them. Even if it looks okay for most reasons it does stop you from, perhaps, going to a higher resolution at times you may want that. 
I hope this gives you some food for thought when thinking about different resolutions. Try some different resolutions. It is easy to switch between them. Don't be afraid of that little warning about performance and worry more about how things look to your eyes and how you prefer to view things. Don't let anybody else tell you which resolution you should be using. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Using Different Display Resolutions With Your Mac”

Howard Brazee

2 years ago

When my wife got her M1 iMac, she wanted the Larger Text. But when she tried to print, the print dialog didn't fit on the screen. Maybe that's a bug that has been fixed, but she switched to the next smaller text size.

Gary Rosenzweig

Howard: Maybe she had the problem I describe in this video (plus solution): https://macmost.com/tips-for-using-the-ventura-print-dialog.html

Robert Bailey

My MacBook Pro (macOS Monterey) will not show a list of other resolutions under "Scaled Resolutions"--just Larger Text, Default, More Space and one in-between Default and More Space. I believe a second display needs to be corrected to show more choices.

Robert: I can't test on Monterey, but at least in Ventura you can Control+click like I show and then see more resolutions on a MacBook using only the internal screen.

Jonathan

In previous versions of Mac OS I think multiple account users on the same Mac were locked into the same screen resolution. It seems that in Ventura at least different users can maintain their own resolution. This is a big plus.

Steve Whitley

Thanks, Gary - that's why different resolutions are offered to adjust to personal preferences. However, people seem to have issues with this subject? Personally, I am old school comfortable with a 27" 4K monitor even running most stuff at 1920 x 1080 (very clear and crisp and minimal squinting - if any). I also have no hesitancy to adjust to 1440p, quite frequently, depending on what I am working on or viewing. Showing how to further adjust to more resolutions was a valuable tip as well!

Donald James

Had same issue as Robert ( I am on MBA M2 Ventura 13.2.1) - could get the list, but I did use one of the presets and it solved my problem. Mainly wanted to say THANK YOU again for a timely tip. This was aggravating me. I kept going to Accessibility thinking that's how to solve.

Apologies, per my last message I meant to write "...could NOT get the list,..."

Comments Closed.

Using Different Display Resolutions With Your Mac

Comments: 8 Responses to “Using Different Display Resolutions With Your Mac”

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