How To Use Sidecar In macOS Catalina With iPadOS On iPad

Here’s how to use macOS Catalina Sidecar feature with iPadOS, which allows you to use your iPad as a Mac secondary display.

For those who may not know, Apple’s new Sidecar features allows a Mac running macOS Catalina to work harmoniously with an iPad running iPadOS to utilize the latter as a second screen.

This is extremely useful for anyone who needs a second display but who already owns an iPad and doesn’t want to invest in a brand new expensive monitor. Apple has had this feature in beta with macOS Catalina since June of this year and it has been received extremely well. Now, however, the feature is live with macOS Catalina and can be interacted with globally.

Let’s dive right in and take a look at how to get up and running with Sidecar.

Step 1: On the Mac in question, launch the System Preferences app and select the Sidecar option. This will give you options related to the Sidecar feature.

Step 2: Make sure that your iPad is connected to your Mac via the correct cable.

Step 3: In the Sidecar preferences window, select the drop-down on the “Connect to:” box. You should see that your connected iPad running iPadOS is listed there. Select the iPad in question from that list.

Step 4: You will notice that you get a little flash on the Mac screen and then the iPad will kick into action with your second screen.

Step 5: Now, you can play around with the preferences of the Sidecar setup via the display settings in the macOS System Preferences. This will allow you to change how you access different displays and how those displays are stacked together.

And there you have it. There is a lot you can do to play around with it and see what’s what, but that covers the very basics of Sidecar.

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