How to Use iPad as a Second Monitor for Mac (2025)

Mirror Copy content from your iPad to your Mac. You will see the same content on both screens. This is useful when assigning screens or content to other devices such as TVs or external monitors. You can also enable screen mirroring by swiping down the iPad Control Centerclick Screen mirroring Icon and select your Mac.
How to use side car
If you are expanding the display, using SideCar is quite intuitive. It works the same way as a standard external monitor. You can use the cursor to drag the window between the display and the iPad. If you are using the app, you can click Window > Move Window arrive Mac or Window > Move to iPad, It will be moved to the respective devices.
You’ll notice Sidebar On one side of the iPad. You can trigger different actions based on the icon. You can use them to: hide or show the dock, the keyboard displayed on the screen, and use shortcuts like Shift, Control, Control, Option, and Command. You can click Control Center on your Mac by going to the Control Center Screen mirror iconand choose Hide sidebar.
Photo: Brenda stolyar
You can show or hide Touch Bar. It appears at the bottom of the screen and displays certain features based on the app you are using. For example, if you are typing, you will see emoji keys and predictive text. If you open a new tab in the browser window, you will see a text box, along with the back, forward and home buttons, type in the URL.
If you are mirroring your monitor, you can use your iPad as usual. It will recognize all the same gestures such as swipe, tap, scroll and zoom. You can also navigate on the screen with an apple pencil. If you have a second-generation Apple Pencil, you can enable double-click to trigger custom actions using certain applications.
How to close the guard
Once you’ve finished using your iPad as an auxiliary display, you can turn it off via your Mac or iPad. If you want to extend the display, you need to complete the following steps.
On your Mac, click Control Centerand click Screen mirroring And deselect iPad from the drop-down list. On iPad, click on the icon on iPad with rectangles and diagonals Touch Barand click disconnect. If you are mirroring the monitor, swipe on the iPad’s control center and click Stop mirroring.
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