Unplugging and plugging external monitor is causing all windows from external monitor to dissapear

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Unplugging and plugging external monitor is causing all windows from external monitor to dissapear

In last couple of days, I've noticed that when I unplug the external monitor all app windows from external monitor are transferred to main monitor from my MacBook Pro. However, when I plug again external monitor, all those windows that were opened before on external monitor are not visible. The only thing I can see on the external monitor is the background image. Which could be OK.

It is frustrating that I can't see open application once I plug in again the external monitor.

Currently, only helps shutting down the whole app or restarting whole notebook... both of these options are really annoying to have during the work day.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Dec 10, 2020 7:17 AM

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Answer 1

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fuzzyness13 Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 17, 2020 5:19 AM in response to Joseph_S.

It seems that the issue has gone with latest update of MacOS.

The issue was following:

have plugged in external monitor
open some application e.g. Slack, Xcode, etc and move it to the external monitor
unplug external monitor
opened application has been moved to built in monitor (works OK)
plug in external monitor again
opened application is not visible anywhere except in Activity Monitor and showed in Dock that is active. The process has to be killed first so that application would start be visible again.

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Answer 2

Joseph_S.

Community Specialist

Dec 14, 2020 1:50 PM in response to fuzzyness13

Hi fuzzyness13,

To make sure we're on the same page, any open windows that are on your external monitor are moved over to the internal monitor upon unplugging it. However, when you plug the monitor back in it only shows an extended desktop until you manually move windows over to it, is that correct?

If so, this is expected behavior from macOS. You can see more information about external monitors below.

Use external monitors with your Mac

If this is a feature you'd like to see tweaked in the future, you can leave feedback at the following link:

Product Feedback

Take care.

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Answer 3

jdo_apple

Community Specialist

Dec 19, 2020 11:31 AM in response to fuzzyness13

Hi fuzzyness13,

Thank you for the additional details.

To clarify, upon plugging your monitor back in, applications stop responding? If you toggle Mission Control, do you see the opened windows then? When you force quit the program, does it say it is not responding?

Let us know, we'll continue from there.

Cheers!

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Unplugging and plugging external monitor is causing all windows from external monitor to dissapear

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