M2 MacBook Pro secret feature!

I’ll cut to the chase 🙂 I found out that the latest MacBook Pro’s (at least the one I bought) has Clamshell mode working! (Well, sorta…) I’m absolutely surprised that no one has mentioned this, so I hope this info will drive a bit to my blog, lol!

TLDR; The Details of ‘the find’…

First off, what is Clamshell mode, and why does ANYONE even care? Clamshell mode is a way to use a notebook computer without opening up the lid. Why would anyone want to do that, especially with how great looking the MacBook Pro screens are??? A variety of reasons, actually. My biggest problem is that the MacBook Pro’s screen is a different size than the external monitors I connect it to. For a specific program (*cough* Remote Desktop, Windows, etc… *cough*) having two screens that are different sizes disables using multiple monitors. I do two things that having multiple monitors *really* helps, software development and music production. Because I work in windows a lot, the weird windows would drive me a bit crazy. Plus, being able to put the notebook in a holder that allows it to take up a lot less desk space is awesome.

So… MacBook Pro’s have had a pretty decent implementation of Clamshell mode. The Intel-based MacBook Pros either had a setting or something built in to the hardware that would turn the computer on, if the plugged in power supply would get power. This worked great, all the way up through the last Intel-based i9 MacBook Pro.

Then the M1 chips happened.

The M1 Max MacBook Pro that I had before was awesome! Overkill for almost everything I was doing when I bought it. It certainly has dealt with anything I could throw at it. The one thing that did drive me a bit crazy was that the M1 chips did not support Clamshell mode. There have been some pretty crazy work arounds (such as scheduling when to turn the computer on… WTF!?!) but no real solution has ever come about. I ended up actually getting a Mac Studio as my desktop computer, just for the smaller space. I certainly wasn’t planning on replacing anything just for the one missing feature. One problem I *did* run into was that I bought ‘underspec’ed’ models of both my MacBook Pro, and MacStudio. Both were ‘base’ models, and a couple of things really started to trip me up. Memory was one, and storage space was another. I had found work arounds that did *ok*, but neither computer was ever going to be able to increase the memory, and I’ve been starting to work with large docker development and Kubernetes, which both eat processors, memory, and storage space. Plus, I was offered a bit of incentive to upgrade my systems for some better specs…

One of the strengths of the Apple Silicon Macs is that everything is on the chip… memory, processors, and storage space. This is also a huge weakness. NONE of it is upgradable. So, what I normally would have done would be grab some extra memory, and put a bigger drive in (and maybe upgrade the processor), but to get better specs, one has to get a new machine.

So an M2 Max MacBook Pro was purchased

This time around, I wanted to install everything ‘fresh’, and not just do a restore of my last machine. There was enough weirdness that I wanted a clean slate. In doing so, I was rebooting the computer, turning things off and one, etc… and I noticed something… I had the lid closed, but the computer would actually start up when I turned on the switch to the power supply. (I have a powerstrip that allows me to turn on and off sockets individually). I tried it several times, and it worked! Whoa! Clamshell mode worked on the new MacBook Pro! I did some installs, including going to the latest beta of macOS (the current public version of macOS screwed up the Continuity Camera, so moving forward is required, unfortunately). I tried again, and… Clamshell mode *didn’t* work. Before I did anything, I figured it would be a good idea to see what Apple themselves had to say about it. In speaking with the tech, it seems that Clamshell mode *should* work on the latest MacBook Pros. I didn’t get full details, but was very glad to hear that the hardware has been updated to make this work! So, I was going to try to go back to the public version of macOS (basically do a restore, as I haven’t *really* done much with the computer yet), and wildly enough… Clamshell mode worked! At this point, it’s been hit and miss, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve logged a bug with Apple, and from the tech learned that there is discussions in the tech side of the support, so it’s a know issue.

Hopefully next beta will get it straightened out!

UPDATE – With macOS 13.4 public release, Clamshell mode on the M2 Max MacBook Pro is working most of the time. If it doesn’t, I just power everything off, let it sit for a couple of moments, and then it seems to work.