Under your System Preferences > Display, you’ve got this 
Just drag the white bar to the other screen to set it as the main screen.
You might have to do that every time you reboot / reconnect the external screen.
MacOS: open file in other monitor
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/11/24
When I have an external monitor connected to my 2015 era Retina MacBook Pro machines, I wanted some apps to appear on the laptop screen and others on the external one.
That was harder than I hoped for as no single solution works in all cases.
What I do now is to make sure the icon bar is on the monitor where I want applications to open. Not perfect, but works for most cases.
Here are some links that helped me:
- [Wayback/Archive] macos – How can I force an application to be launched to the 2nd monitor? – Ask Different first answer works only for a few applications, the second sometimes fails too (but thanks [Wayback/Archive] heyfrank, [Wayback/Archive] nhgrif, [Wayback/Archive] jherran and [Wayback/Archive] Eric Leschinski for suggesting solutions that do work for some situations)):
Q
How can I force a newly launched application to open to a specific monitor?Followup questions: Failing that, how can I force a new window that a current application is opening to open in a specific monitor?And how can I move a borderless window?A
When the app is on the dock do left click on it and it will appear a menu. Select Options → Assign To Desktop on Display 2.
…
C
I don’t have these options for the application in question. [Wayback/Archive] i.stack.imgur.com/Y838a.pngC
I remember these options showing up were sometimes dependent on the way the application was launched (i.e. from Spotlight, the Dock or double clicked in the Applications folder). Could you please try different methods and see if that shows the options?
C
This isn’t working for me in High Sierra. I pinned my apps on display 2 and 3 but when I start them they’re appearing on my first screen most of the time
A
Consider the simpler solutions first:-
First decide which screen is your default by choosing the default monitor, maybe you can solve your problem by switching default monitor. Go to
System Preferences->Displays->Arrangement. The Screen with the horizontal white bar is the default. Toggle that. -
Second, see if your app has an internal window manager, like iterm2 and chrome browser does. Look through app system settings or profiles. This is application specific and may not have anything.
-
There are many 3rd party apple window management systems, some free and some paid. Install them and they will attempt to impose controls over how these programs start and stop and impose desktop location, window sizing and window positioning. Careful as these programs may fight each other.
…
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- [Wayback/Archive] macbook pro – How can I set an external display (monitor) as the primary one? – Ask Different (thanks [Wayback/Archive] Jakub Arnold, [Wayback/Archive] Loïc Wolff, [Wayback/Archive] Geovani Martinez and [Wayback/Archive] AMIC MING)
Q
Currently the MacBook’s display works as primary, so every application I open gets open on the 13″ and I have to drag it to the 24″. I also don’t have access to the dock on my 24″.
Is is possible to turn off the MacBook screen and use only the one attached via DVI?
A
C
You can also install an application called caffeine which you can turn on or off. Once turned on you can close the lid and it will not go into sleep mode.
A with an even better picture showing how to drag the white bar
While running a dual-display setup, you can easily adjust the primary display monitor in Mac OS X. Before beginning, have both displays turned on, and the external display already connected to the Mac:
- Go to System Preferences -> Displays
- Choose the ‘Arrangement’ tab
- Click and hold on the white bar at the top of the current primary display
- Drag the white bar across to the other monitor you want to set as the new primary display
- After you release the white bar, both screens will flicker briefly and adjust to accommodate new settings
Whatever monitor is set as primary it will become the default display for applications launching, in addition to holding the system menubar, containing all the default desktop icons and the Dock.
Note that if the secondary display will be detached, the primary screen will revert back to a built-in display on any portable Mac.
Here is the [Wayback/Archive] link to the original post about it.
- [Wayback/Archive] macos – How do I move my menubar to an external monitor? – Ask Different (thanks [Wayback/Archive] MikeSchinkel and [Wayback/Archive] Robert S Ciaccio)
Q
It seems that the menubar wants to stay with the laptop and doesn’t seem to be possible to move to the external monitor. Am I beating a dead horse here or is it somehow possible to achieve the layout I’m looking for?
A
Try and drag the menubar icon you’re pointing to in that screenshot to the other monitor. It’s kind of hard to grab with the mouse pointer but it should work if you can click/drag that white space rather than the blue space representing the monitor.
Queries:
- [Wayback/Archive] macos open file in other monitor – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] macos set default display – Google Search
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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