Display Presets

Display Presets is a small macOS menu bar app for saving and switching display arrangements.

It is designed for setups where you regularly switch between monitor layouts: docked vs. undocked, mirrored vs. extended, presentation mode, or any other display arrangement you can configure in System Settings.

Features

• Save the current display arrangement as a named preset.
• Switch presets from the menu bar.
• Keep the app hidden from the Dock.
• Optionally open at login.
• Store presets locally in Application Support.
• No accounts, telemetry, network calls, or cloud sync.

Display Presets restores macOS display arrangements. It does not switch a monitor's physical HDMI, DisplayPort, or USB-C input source.

Requirements

• macOS 13 Ventura or later.
• displayplacer, installed separately.

Display Presets does not bundle displayplacer. Install it separately, most commonly with Homebrew:

brew install displayplacer

Install

Display Presets is source-first for now. Public binary downloads are not provided because the app is not Developer ID signed or notarized.

Build and run locally:

make deps
make run

Run the full local verification suite:

make check

Usage

1. Arrange your displays in System Settings.
2. Open Configure Presets... from the menu bar.
3. Name the arrangement and click Save.
4. Choose the saved preset from the menu bar whenever you want to restore it.

For example, common presets might be:

• Main
• Vertical Side Monitor
• Presentation
• Mirrored

Use Open at Login in the menu to start the app automatically when you sign in. If you are running the temporary build copy, the menu offers Install in Applications... first. That copies the app to ~/Applications, opens the installed copy, and then you can enable Open at Login.

Build

Regenerate the app icon after changing icon artwork:

make app-icon

make build

Install the locally built app into ~/Applications:

make install
open ~/Applications/Display\ Presets.app

Local builds are ad-hoc signed for development. They are intended for people who build the app themselves from source.

The Makefile includes packaging and notarization targets for a possible future signed release, but those require an Apple Developer ID Application certificate:

make package SIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)"

To notarize, first configure an Apple notarytool keychain profile, then run:

make notarize \
  SIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" \
  NOTARY_PROFILE="DisplayPresets"

Build artifacts are written to dist/.

Design

Display Presets is a native AppKit LSUIElement app. It creates one menu bar status item and stores presets as plain text files under Application Support. The app only shells out to the local displayplacer executable when saving or applying a preset.

See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for a short implementation map.

Privacy

Display Presets stores preset files locally at:

~/Library/Application Support/Display Presets

It does not collect analytics, send telemetry, contact a server, or require an account.

Third-Party Software

Display Presets depends on displayplacer, an MIT-licensed command-line utility for reading and applying display arrangements. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for details.

Notes

Display Presets shows the last preset it applied. It does not read a monitor's physical input source directly.

Some display identifiers can change when macOS wakes displays in a different order. If a saved preset stops applying correctly, recreate that preset with the current display arrangement.

For common setup and runtime issues, see docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.