How to Enable Sidecar in macOS Catalina for Unsupported Macs

Sidecar is a new feature introduced by Apple in macOS 10.15 Catalina, that turns an iPad into a second monitor for a Mac, either by extending what’s on the display or by mirroring the content. However, it appears that the feature may be limited to only a small selection of newer Macs at launch.

Sidecar supports iMac 27″ (Late 2015) or newer, MacBook Pro (2016) or newer, mac Mini (2018), Mac Pro (2019), MacBook Air (2018) , MacBook (Early 2016 or newer), and blacklists all the devices in the screenshot pic.twitter.com/DHNDyI98WV

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith)

June 5, 2019

According to developer Steve Troughton-Smith, here’s the list of Macs that officially support Sidecar in the first beta of macOS Catalina:

• Late 2015 27″ iMac or newer
• 2017 iMac Pro
• Mid 2016 MacBook Pro or newer
• Late 2018 Mac mini or newer
• Late 2018 MacBook Air or newer
• Early 2016 MacBook or newer
• 2019 Mac Pro

Troughton-Smith notes that Apple has blacklisted a long list of older Macs from taking advantage of the new feature. Luckily though, here is a terminal command that enables the use of Sidecar on older Macs running the beta.

To enable Sidecar in macOS Catalina on an unsupported Mac, simply use the following terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.sidecar.display allowAllDevices -bool YES

Although the command is not guaranteed to work 100%, the majority of users seem to have enabled it successfully. Let us know if it works for you.