DisplayLink Manager Now Supports External Display Rotation on M1 Macs

Friday November 26, 2021 10:45 am PST by Joe Rossignol

Synaptics today released a new beta version of DisplayLink Manager for macOS with long-awaited support for external display rotation on M1 Macs. A company representative said a final release is planned by late December provided that beta testing is successful.

macos external displays displaylink
DisplayLink adapters have proven popular with M1 models of the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro, as they allow for multiple external displays to be connected, despite Apple's tech specs indicating that the notebooks only support one external display. DisplayLink Manager helps with setting up external displays via DisplayLink.

As seen in the above screenshot shared on Reddit, the new version of DisplayLink Manager allows for external displays connected to an M1 Mac with DisplayLink adapters or docks to be used in both landscape and portrait orientations.

DisplayLink Manager 1.6 beta is compatible with all macOS Monterey and macOS Big Sur versions and is free to download on the Synaptics website.

The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models officially support up to two external displays with the M1 Pro chip, or up to four external displays with the M1 Max chip, without the use of DisplayLink adapters or other workarounds.

Tag: DisplayLink

Related Forums: macOS Monterey, macOS Big Sur

Popular Stories

Here's What Apple's Apps Look Like on the iPhone Duo

Tuesday October 20, 2026 11:12 am PDT by Juli Clover

With just three days to go until the iPhone Duo is released, Apple is getting ready for the launch. Behind the scenes, the App Store now has screenshots of Apple's built-in apps running on the Duo. We've seen some apps in marketing materials, but images of the ones we haven't seen give us an idea of what it will be like using the iPhone Duo day to day. Many apps are shown in landscape...

• 116 comments

Apple Pulls Keynote, Pages and Numbers From App Store [Update: Back]

Thursday October 22, 2026 11:01 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple has temporarily removed Keynote, Pages, and Numbers from the App Store, just after releasing an update that added iPhone Duo support and a new Intelligent Assistant. It is not clear if the apps were removed intentionally, or if it is a bug. Apple has not said when the apps will be reinstated, but if it was in error, they should return soon. Update: The Mac versions are back without...

• 64 comments

RIP, MacBook Ultra

Monday October 19, 2026 9:37 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple today sent out invites for an experience in Los Angeles on Wednesday, October 28, and the "Pro and tell" tagline on the invitation likely means that the rumored MacBook models with touch-enabled OLED displays will stick with MacBook Pro branding instead of the once-rumored "MacBook Ultra" name. The long-rumored "iPhone Ultra" ended up being named iPhone Duo, so speculation that Apple...

• 165 comments

Top Rated Comments

audioadrenaline

64 months ago

We wouldn't have to screw with this if Apple would just support Multi-Stream Transport.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Mick-Mac

64 months ago

I remember trying my best to work with displaylink a few year back - it was never quite right and there was always something broken. I just gave up on it. Frankly, I'm kind of amazed it's still a thing.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

chrizel

64 months ago

Bought a DisplayLink dock in August with one of the newer DisplayLink chips which support 4K/60. Using it at home with my 13” M1 work MBP and my personal M1 MBA to drive an LG 5k and a Dell monitor. Besides some rare situations when connecting the device where the screen won’t turn on (which can be fixed by reconnecting the cable) - I’m satisfied with DisplayLink. Can recommend. But do your research and buy one of the newer devices with the 4K/60 chip.

What I really like: the DisplayLink dock is connected to the LG 5k, so to the MacBooks I still have one single cable that provides power, all screens, networking, usb devices etc.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

colinsky

64 months ago

I'm running an LG 5K Ultrafine and two Dell U2715 2560x1440s on my m1 Mini with DisplayLink. Eager to see if the DisplayLink Manager update resolves my wake-from-sleep problem--all the windows in all the monitors re-collect in the center monitor upon waking from sleep.

Sigh, nope, still all collected in the center monitor. If I restart, the windows stay in their proper places.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

saudor

64 months ago

I hope these new drivers work better than DisplayLink used to years ago.

yeah it's substantially smoother these days. The update during the mojave era was a big improvement where for basic tasks, it became super smooth

EDIT: should also add that these things are useful even for intel. Radeon dGPUs are dumb in the sense that as soon as you connect a different display to it, it never properly enters an idle state even without load. The memory clock and sometimes the core clock (depending on the differing resolutions, refresh rates, and scaling factor) gets stuck at higher/max and pumps a ton of heat.

Things like displaylink and sidecar (depending on the Mac) partially uses the iGPU/T2 for hardware acceleration so the dGPU doesn’t freak out and the system remains much cooler

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)