SwitchResX — Mac download

Display Sets—the feature that lets you save and switch between complete monitor configurations—just got a reliability fix. SwitchResX 4.14.2 steps in where macOS stops, giving you direct command over every pixel your screen can push.

Unlock Hidden Resolutions and Per-App Scaling

• Creates custom resolutions your monitor supports but macOS hides.
• Assigns specific resolutions to launch with individual applications.
• Saves Display Sets for quick reconfiguration of multi-monitor layouts.
• Manages HiDPI modes properly for Retina and scaled displays.

Pixel-Perfect Layouts for Stubborn Setups

Anyone who needs a resolution macOS won't offer. Designers matching exact pixel grids, users connecting non-standard external displays, or anyone who wants a text editor to open at a different scaling than their browser. It replaces guesswork in the Displays preference pane with a precise, editable list of modes.

Control-click the SwitchResX menu bar icon and you get a compact list of every active display. Each name is a submenu. Hover over one, and you see resolutions with refresh rates appended—so you know you are picking 60 Hz, not 30 Hz, before you click. A separate “Color” submenu lets you change the display profile without opening System Settings. This alone saves a handful of trips to the Displays pane every week.

Another shortcut most people skip: you can save a Display Set without switching to it. Open the Display Sets tab, set your monitors the way you want them, then hold the Option key while clicking the “Save As” button. SwitchResX captures the current arrangement without toggling anything. Useful when you are about to test a different layout but want a fallback snapshot.

In the Custom Resolutions tab, double-clicking a resolution opens it for editing. But triple-clicking the “Status” column header forces a re-scan of all custom modes against the display’s EDID. If a mode shows “Not installed” when you are certain the monitor accepts it, this scan often clears the mismatch. Small gesture, no documentation calls it out.

For those who found their way here through a switchresx download on a secondary display that never quite fits, the “Apply on startup” checkbox inside each Display Set is the fix. Without it, macOS can revert to a default layout before SwitchResX loads, leaving you to manually reapply the set every login.

A Colourist’s Afternoon

Consider a video colourist who grades on a reference monitor connected via HDMI, plus a GUI display for scopes and timeline. In the morning she works in a bright room at 100 cd/m² with a D65 white point. After lunch she moves to a dim suite and re-calibrates to 48 cd/m² with a different gamma. She creates two Display Sets: “Day Suite” and “Dark Suite.” Each set bundles the resolution, colour profile, and even the rotation of the GUI display. Switching takes one click from the menu bar. No fiddling with multiple preference panes, no re-enabling a monitor that macOS forgot during the move. The Display Set also triggers an AppleScript that re-launches her scopes in the correct window positions—because SwitchResX can fire a script whenever a set activates.

Check the Scaled Column Before Crafting Custom Resolutions

The most common mistake is creating a custom resolution before checking the monitor’s actual limits. The “Scaled” column in the Current Resolutions tab shows what macOS is already doing to the signal. If a resolution is marked as scaled, the GPU is processing pixels before they hit the display. New users will type in a 3840×2160 mode, see it accepted, and not realize the display is only capable of 1920×1080. The image fits, but every pixel is a half-pixel blur. Always cross-check the display’s native EDID ranges in the Display Information tab before you invent a mode.

Another trap: enabling HiDPI on a non-Retina panel. The checkbox is right there in the custom resolution editor, and it makes fonts look delicious on the internal MacBook screen. Apply it to a 27-inch 1440p external monitor, however, and you get giant UI elements with no actual sharpness gain—the monitor simply cannot map 2× logical pixels to 1× physical ones. SwitchResX will let you do it because it trusts you to know your hardware. Many beginners mistake this for a bug and look up a SwitchResX crack to see if a different build behaves differently. The monitor just lacks the pixel density.

Also worth knowing: deleting a custom resolution while it is still assigned to a Display Set leaves a broken reference. The set will try to apply it on next activation and fail silently, sometimes defaulting to a 720p safety mode. Remove the resolution from the set first, then delete the custom mode. The 4.14.2 update fixed a related deletion bug, so the sequence is now reliable if you follow the order.

• Fixed a conflict when deleting a Display Set previously paired with another.
• Fixed an issue where nameless displays in macOS disrupted settings.
• Fixed repeated, unnecessary self-updating of settings with no display attached.
• Improved behaviour on Apple Silicon: quitting the Dock is now allowed when disabling a display.

• macOS 10.10 or later
• Intel and Apple Silicon Macs