DisplayBuddy 3.9.6 — Mac version

If your Mac sits plugged into a decent external monitor, you'll know the drill: reaching under the bezel to fiddle with brightness, squinting at tiny buttons for the input source. The on-screen sliders macOS gives you are fine for an iMac, but pretty thin for anything else. DisplayBuddy puts proper controls right in your menu bar, where they belong.

Getting the basics working

Once it's running, you get sliders for brightness, contrast and volume on any supported external screen. It talks to Apple's own Studio Display and Pro Display XDR, plus older Thunderbolt Displays and plain DDC monitors.

Saving your favourite setup

You can store the whole arrangement as a preset — brightness, contrast, input and colour profile — and recall it with one click. Handy if you switch between day and evening modes, or share a desk.

Keeping it out of the way

Custom keyboard shortcuts mean you never have to open the menu at all. Tap a key combo to nudge brightness up or switch from HDMI to USB-C without looking away from your work.

90 MB of RAM and barely a CPU tick on Intel

On an Intel MacBook Pro from 2019, the app sits in the menu bar using about 90 MB of RAM and barely tickles the CPU unless you're dragging a slider. On an M1 machine it's even lighter — the kind of utility you forget is running until you need it.

DDC communication over HDMI can occasionally feel a fraction slower than over USB-C or DisplayPort. That's the protocol, not the app. Most of the time, brightness changes land within half a second. No beachballs, no crashes across a week of plugging and unplugging two different Dell panels.

Version 3.9.6 noticeably tightened up the Dark Mode and Night Shift toggles. They used to feel a bit sticky on older hardware; now they snap on without the half-second lag.

Grant accessibility and screen recording permissions right away

After you drag the app into Applications and launch it, give it a few minutes to settle in. Here's what makes the first days smoother:

• Grant permissions early. On first launch, macOS will ask about accessibility and screen recording access. Say yes to both, or the app won't talk to your monitor properly. You can check this later under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility.
• Test each input. If you use a monitor with multiple sources, cycle through them once via the menu bar to confirm DDC works on all ports. Some displays only respond on one input.
• Set a do-nothing preset as backup. Before experimenting, save your current state as a preset. If you push contrast too far or switch to a dead input by mistake, one click brings you home.
• Map the brightness keys straight away. Go into Preferences and assign your Mac's brightness keys to the external display. After years of reaching for monitor buttons, this alone makes the download worthwhile.

One more thing: if you're hunting a displaybuddy free download to try before committing, the version floating around on some forums is often several releases behind. You'll miss the colour profile fix and the tighter Dark Mode response that came with 3.9.6.

• You can now pick a colour profile or macOS Display Preset on supported screens
• Fixed a bug that hid the volume slider on some DDC displays
• Preset menu no longer clips off the edge
• Dark Mode, Night Shift and True Tone controls feel snappier

• macOS 10.13 or newer
• Works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs
• Interface in English