Chosen Solution
Hello all Before I spend my money on expensive Thunderbolt cables. I want to use a machine to check another machines display, mirror the contents on a bigger screen. I ask this question; has anyone successfully connected their MacBook Pro to iMac using a mini display port male to male cable ? (plugged into both thunderbolt ports on both machines) CMD + F2 ? I know a Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable will do it, but they are stupidly overpriced! Will the mini display port cable male to male do the job ? Any downsides to using the mini display male to male cable ? I know I could check the display using a mini display port cable to HDMI adapter and just connect direct to TV also. Thanks for reading.
Update (02/09/2020) Thanks Dan. I bought an Apple Thunderbolt cable to connect Mac to Mac. However I wouldn’t mind buying one of these Thunderbolt Mini Display port to HDMI cables. Just as a back up to connect a machine to HDMI port on a TV. I’ve read a few reviews whereby audio is not present on some machines or visual picture isn’t very good. Does anyone know if Apple do their own Thunderbolt Mini Display to HDMI cable or what’s the best after market cable that supports both audio and visual? There’s too many cheap ones like this one for sale.
Sadly, the DisplayPort cable is strictly that for a display, it’s not a fully wired Thunderbolt cable. Which is why you do need the Thunderbolt cable as its a superset of connections and the wires are more fully shielded. Update (02/10/2020) I remembered there is a great Apple T/N that goes over Target Display mode Use your iMac as a display with target display mode Sadly, Apple has pulled the feature from Mojave and newer macOS’s. And its usefulness is much less in newer systems as well. Frankly, I just use a display which supports DP & HDMI connections as my test display.
