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I have an external monitor connected to my laptop, and the external monitor is set as the primary display. My problem is that sometimes after I've connected the monitor, the App Switcher still shows on the laptop screen. How can I set/reset it to show on the primary display (external monitor)?

enter image description here

Markus Hedlund
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12 Answers12

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The App Switcher tends to follow where the Dock is located. Place your dock in the monitor where you want your app switcher to be displayed.

For example: if you have two monitors and the dock is on left side hiding then the app switcher will be on left monitor.

If the Dock is on the bottom, the app switcher will be on the monitor where the dock was most recently activated. You can test this by activating the dock and then the app switcher on each display.

BTW I am on Mavericks.

kylieCatt
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Dan Peters
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  • How do you move the Dock between monitors? – Bluu Dec 17 '13 at 22:59
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    How to move Dock: [http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/106405/cmd-tab-behavior-on-mavericks-with-multiple-displays](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/106405/cmd-tab-behavior-on-mavericks-with-multiple-displays) – croceldon Dec 18 '13 at 17:08
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    FYI - If you set the dock to autohide, it will follow your cursor. I.e. dock is autohid on the bottom--place your cursor on the bottom of any monitor and the dock will move to that monitor. If you do this right before cmd + tab all is well :) – James Jun 11 '14 at 20:38
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    for me, it was whatever monitor had my hidden dock most recently activated. – bearMountain Aug 25 '14 at 23:56
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    Brilliiiiiiant! – hkcktk Nov 12 '14 at 22:07
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    Indeed, on Yosemite, when dock is autohiding, the task switcher will be on the display that last unhid the dock. Which is pretty annoying at times. – Brendonwbrown Feb 27 '15 at 14:27
  • To generalize this solution a bit, are you saying you should do the following: In a 2-monitor setup, set the dock to the outside edge of the monitor where you want to see the app switcher, i.e., if you want to the switcher on your left monitor, set the dock to the left (and hide it), and if you want the switcher on your right monitor, set the dock to the right (and hide it). It works b/c the dock doesn't appear on the edge between adjacent screens, so it can only appear on the monitor where you want to see the app switcher. – Crowder Feb 15 '19 at 18:13
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    In my opinion, the most sensible place to show the switcher is on the display that you are looking at. And because Mac does not (yet) track your eyes, the switcher should, by default, be replicated on all displays. If presenting, you'd choose different behavior. – jarmod Feb 15 '19 at 22:50
  • This still works on Mojave 10.14.6 – Dr Fabio Gori Apr 09 '20 at 09:53
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    I agree that this make no sense, it should appear on all screens, any idea how to do that (on Catalina the alt-tab menu shows on the last display that showed the dock, how ridiculous is this behaviour lol) – cglacet Sep 15 '20 at 16:15
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    Still working the same in Big Sur (11.3) – Orlando Rivera Letelier May 04 '21 at 07:30
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This displays app switcher on both the screens. Works on MacOS Monterey 12.3.1

defaults write com.apple.dock appswitcher-all-displays -bool true
killall Dock

If it isn't working for you even after the killall Dock, try rebooting. This seems to be common for people with M1 chips.

It also works on other versions (Ventura, Big Sur and Catalina)

Destroy666
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Georgy Jose
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Just move your mouse pointer to the bottom of your primary display to cause the dock to pop-up (if hidden), and the App Switcher will pin to the display. If you activate the Dock on your secondary display, the App Switcher will pin to it. If you do not use the Pop-up Dock feature, just Click your Downloads icon on the dock in your primary display to move the App Switcher focus back to that display.

Monty Fowler
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    On Mavericks with multiple monitors, I've noticed that the App Switcher shows up on the display that your mouse last hovered over the dock. Weird... – Dan May 27 '14 at 15:12
  • Ah, thanks, didn't understand how it suddenly changed to the other monitor. – Viktor Mellgren Feb 23 '21 at 10:24
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In OS X Mavericks, the task switcher is now shown on the screen that previously showed the dock (and in Mavericks this is both screens).

I don't really ever use the dock, but the task switcher jumped to my second monitor (Macbook) all the time anyway.

What worked for me was to move the dock from bottom of the monitor(s) to the right of my main monitor. The task switcher has not jumped back since i did that.

Vargen
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    This worked for me on Yosemite as well. It seems the application switcher is displayed on whatever display also shows the dock, which itself doesn't jump after you set the "primary" display in the system display settings. – Brian Gerstle Feb 09 '15 at 14:53
  • Thank you! I've been wondering what the trigger was that had the App Switcher what seemed randomly switching monitors. – Dolan Antenucci Sep 10 '21 at 15:01
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It sometimes happens together with the Dock being unresponsive. Restarting Dock helps.

Type in terminal:

killall Dock
Michał Szajbe
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On my MacBook Pro an external monitor, I did the following to get my task switcher on the MacBook screen:

  • Go to System Preferences ➔ Dock
  • Turn off Dock Hiding by checking the checkbox for "Automatically hide and show the Dock".
  • The dock now displays on my MacBook Pro screen.
  • Now turn Dock Hiding back on by clicking the same checkbox.
  • Now my task switcher returned to the MacBook screen.
karel
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Sanjay Subramanian
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On MacOS 12 Monterey, I got it to move when I turned hiding off on the dock (right click on the dock, "Turn Hiding Off"). Just moving the mouse or mousing over the dock to show it wasn't enough anymore.

Sveinbjörn Pálsson
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If you're not really using your laptop monitor when you've got your external monitor attached, you can turn on display mirroring to make it act like you've only got one monitor attached.

Go to

  • System Preferences
  • Displays
  • Arrangement
  • Check "Display Mirroring".
Brad Parks
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Latest Mavericks (10.9.5 as of 2014-09-26):

The dock shows up in both monitors for me which is how I like it. When the App Switcher occasionally appears in the wrong screen, my solution is to interact with the dock in the screen where I want App Switcher to appear.

By "interact" I mean do literally anything with it. Turn magnification on and off again, whatever -- even just clicking on it seems to work. This always seems to get its attention and tell OS X to consider that screen the current primary. Nothing in the System Preferences > Displays seemed to help, but this little trick has, for me, consistently.

Jawa
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cweekly
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Drag to white bar to the primary screen (where you want the app switcher to appear) solved it for me. If it's already on the the primary screen, switch it back and forth to make it work. Screenshot

lajlev
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I had the same exact problem and it was driving me insane, so I opened the system prefs and went to the monitor tab to see if there's a setting, I found nothing and close the preferences and then magically it got fixed, now the application switcher is on my main monitor!

Nel
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    Hello and welcome to superuser.com. Please do not use the answer fields to post comments. Wait until you have enough reputation points to post comments and do it then. Answers are for answers with a description of how to solve something. – Mogget Nov 07 '13 at 21:27
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    Hello again. Don't be sorry. This happens all the time. You can if you want delete your answer by pressing delete where is says `share|edit|delete|flag`. Just know that in general, the "regulars" want the answer fields to contain specific solutions and comments about something to be in the comments. You will have the required reputation points to write comments soon, so don't despair. Cheers. – Mogget Nov 07 '13 at 22:31
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    To me this seems like an answer/solution, I don't think you should remove it. Thanks, will check it out! – Markus Hedlund Nov 08 '13 at 06:19
  • Sadly it did not work for me. – Markus Hedlund Nov 08 '13 at 15:13
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    The solution is actually easier than I thought, the fact is that the app switcher is going to appear in the monitor where the dock is, I have my dock hidden, so to make the app switcher appear on the opposite monitor I just have to slide down the mouse to make the dock appear on that monitor. This way is so easy to select which monitor you want as primary on the fly. No need to open system preferences. – Nel Nov 12 '13 at 22:09
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    @Nel, If that solution works for you, you should update your answer to reflect it. – DanteTheEgregore Nov 13 '13 at 15:46
  • @Nel (CC: Znarkus): unless this can consistently solve the problem, then it's just a story of ONE STRANGE THING that happened to you one day, rather than an answer to how to solve the problem. If it will work consistently, then you should describe how another user can do it, rather than just telling how it happened to you. – iconoclast May 17 '16 at 19:57
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I had this same problem with Mavericks, and I am happy to say that it seems to have been dealt with in Yosemite. There is a setting that allows you to control where tab-switcher appears (e.g. monitor with mouse or monitor with active window).

fredcallaway
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    Where is this setting in Yosemite? – xgdgsc Oct 20 '14 at 07:26
  • I think it was in preferences>dock but I can't say for sure. Either they removed it (unlikely) or it doesn't show up when you don't have an external monitor connected. It could also be in mission control. – fredcallaway Oct 21 '14 at 13:29
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    This sounds nice, but I can't find it in any of the places you have listed even with two external monitors plugged in and running. Any other thoughts? – spex Jan 05 '15 at 18:43