Resolutionator is a tool that allows you to quickly and easily change the resolution of your display—including any external displays as well. You can change resolutions via the menu bar, or by using a pop-up resolution browser and the keyboard.
The available resolutions can include more than are shown in the Displays System Settings panel, and in some cases, you'll be able to run your display at a resolution greater than its actual resolution. (This isn't advisable, unless you have better than 20/20 vision!)
Resolutionator was designed for retina displays. We make no promises about how well it may work (or if it even will work) on non-retina displays. You can test it, though, as it's not possible for Resolutionator to harm your display regardless of its retina status. You just might not see very many useful resolution options on a non-retina display.
The Basics
After launching Resolutionator for the first time, you'll see its icon in your menu bar (you can switch its operating mode via a setting in Settings); click the icon, and you'll see a drop-down menu listing the available resolutions on your display(s). Here's how Resolutionator's default menu appears on an M1 13" Retina MacBook Pro:
The green dot denotes the true non-interpolated retina resolution—1280 × 800 is exactly half the display's native 2560 × 1600 resolution. The black checkmark denotes the currently active resolution. Changing resolutions is as easy as selecting the one you'd like to use.
On the M1 MacBook Pro, the top four listed resolutions match what's shown in the Displays System Settings panel:
And here's how those options translate to the resolutions seen in Resolutionator's menu:
- Larger Text → 1024 × 640
- (unlabeled) → 1280 × 800 (True retina resolution)
- Default → 1440 × 900
- More Space → 1680 × 1050
Depending on which Retina Mac you have, you'll see different choices in the Resolutionator interface. But they will always include (at least) all of the options shown in the Displays System Settings panel.
Settings
Resolutionator is a very simple app, with a very simple collection of settings. You access its settings via the Resolutionator sub-menu (as seen at right) in Resolutionator's menu bar icon. (You can also use this sub-menu to open the About box, purchase or view a license, check for updates, open this help file, and quit the app.)
The settings themselves have but two tabs, General and Updates. Updates is self-explanatory; it's where you check for updates, and specify whether you'd like those updates to happen automatically or not.
The General tab controls how Resolutionator behaves, and what resolution options it shows you:
Here's what each setting does…
Show non-retina resolutions: When checked, Resolutionator will show you non-retina resolution options. These are resolutions which don't first render at higher resolutions before being shown at the chosen resolution. As an example, the screenshot at right is what you'll see with this setting enabled on an M1 MacBook Pro.
The top four entries are the retina resolutions: macOS creates these resolutions by first creating the image at a higher resolution, then interpolating as necessary to achieve the chosen resolution. This results in the typically crisp text and images you see on a retina display. For any resolution other than the true retina resolution—e.g. 1280 × 800 on the M1 MacBook Pro—the OS needs to interpolate to create the final image. But given the high resolution of retina displays, this interpolation is invisible to the user. (If you'd really like to know more about retina displays, this Wikipedia article is a great place to start.)
The second section contains non-retina options—these resolutions are rendered at exactly the listed resolution, so you won't get retina-quality visuals. You'll often see resolutions listed in both sections, as with the highlighted 1440 × 900 entries in the screenshot at right. If you choose the first option, your display will show 1440 × 900 in high-quality retina mode. If you choose the second option, you'll get the lower-quality non-retina mode.
Depending on what you're looking at, the selected resolution, and the native resolution of the display, the differences may be subtle or pronounced—but there are differences. Here's a zoomed-in view of the word "as" at 1440 × 900 in retina (left) and non-retina (right) modes:
While you won't be this zoomed in on text most of the time, it does show the obvious differences between retina and non-retina modes.
If your display looks a bit "soft" after using Resolutionator, make sure you didn't accidentally select a non-retina resolution.
Show silly resolutions: When checked, Resolutionator will be allowed to show resolutions that are actually larger than the number of pixels on your display. If you select one of these silly resolutions, macOS will scale the entire UI down to achieve the selected resolution.
Not all Macs offer silly resolutions—the M1 MacBook Pro, for example, doesn't have any available. This isn't something that Resolutionator controls, so please don't ask us to add silly resolutions for your particular model of Mac, because we can't.
On a 27" 5K Retina iMac, for example, you can use a resolution up to 7680 × 4320, even though the iMac's actual resolution is "only" 5120 × 2880:
These are labeled silly resolutions—and display the "clown" icon from the old ResEdit app—because, well, they're pretty silly.
Switch resolutions via keyboard with hot key: Assign a keystroke sequence to activate Resolutionator via the keyboard. When you press the defined shortcut keys, you'll see an onscreen switcher that matches what you'd see in the menu bar:
Use the up and down arrows to cycle between resolutions, and the left and right arrows to select other displays (if applicable). Press Return with the desired resolution highlighted, and it becomes active.
We recommend everyone set a hot key, even if you don't intend to use it. Why? If you ever select a resolution (too low or too high) that makes the Resolutionator menu bar icon unusable, you can call up the onscreen switcher to return to a usable resolution.
Launch automatically at login: What it says.
Show settings at launch: Also what it says.
Run as [standard • menu bar • faceless] application: Used in standard mode, Resolutionator has a Dock icon; in menu bar mode, it has only a menu bar icon. In faceless mode, Resolutionator has absolutely no user interface.
If you choose faceless mode and you haven't set a shortcut key, you'll see a warning dialog, because you'll have no way to activate Resolutionator.
To quit—or change settings—while running in faceless mode, double-click the application icon in Finder. This will open Resolutionator's settings window, which will also include a Quit button. Alternatively, just press the comma key while the switcher is onscreen.
Pinned Resolutions
Because displays can have many available resolutions, finding the one you want to use can be a bit time consuming. Enter pinned resolutions—a pinned resolution will always be listed at the top of the menu, making it easier to find your most-used resolutions.
To pin a resolution, hold down the Option key when the Resolutionator menu is visible, either from the menu bar, or in the onscreen pop-up. With the Option key down, the menu bar choices will change to show the Pin feature:
Note: When using the onscreen menu, you will not see any additional text, but holding down the Option key still works.
Select a resolution, and it will become pinned—it will not activate, however. You can repeat this process as often as you wish to create your list of pinned resolutions. In this shot, the first four resolutions have been pinned and will always be at the top of the screen:
To unpin a resolution, repeat the process: Hold the Option key down when the menu is visible, and you'll see the Unpin option for any pinned resolutions:
Additional Displays
When you have external display(s) attached to your Mac, Resolutionator will see them, and display its menu in two levels: The topmost menu shows each display, and its associated sub-menu shows the available resolutions for the chosen display:
As with the main display, the list of available resolutions is provided by macOS itself, and Resolutionator has no control over what shows up in the list.
Resolutionator tries its best to identify each display by its location, in addition to its reported-to-macOS name. Sometimes, though, some of this data may be missing—the screenshot shows that there was no name information returned for either the M1 MacBook Pro (top display) or the connected iPad (bottom display). This is why Resolutionator displays the layout (Top and Bottom) to help you identify the correct display.
Note that for certain display layouts or combinations of display resolutions, Resolutionator may incorrectly identify the position of a display. If that happens, please let us know and we'll try to get it fixed.
Finally, note that some of the displayed resolutions may not be very usable—a 640 × 480 window in macOS isn't large enough to see much of anything. If you pick a resolution that's too small to be usable, nothing bad will happen to your display; you'll just need to use Resolutionator to pick another more-usable resolution.
You may wish to enable a keyboard shortcut to switch resolutions (see Settings), as this will allow you to switch back without having to see the Resolutionator menu bar icon—which may not be visible, depending on what resolution you selected.
AppleScript Support
Resolutionator has some basic AppleScript support, so you can automate switching resolutions via Scrpt Editor, Shortcuts, or other automation tools. The basic syntax is very simple:
set resolution 2304 x 1296 for display 2
end tell
Displays are on a one-based numbering system, so the main (menu bar) display is 1, the next 2, etc. There's one optional parameter that tells Resolutionator to ignore retina resolutions:
set resolution 2304 x 1296 for display 2 with ignore retina resolutions
end tell
As with any automation, you should test your script in Script Editor before committing to it, just to make sure it does what you want it to do.
Get More Help
If this help isn't enough, and you need additional assistance with Resolutionator, you can reach out to us via our other channels. Use our support page to open a trouble ticket or email us directly, and you can often find us on our Discord channel.
You might also find answers to your Moom questions on the Moom FAQ pages.