How to remove black horizontal lines appearing on the screen of MacBook Pro

I also have this issue 16-inch, 2019 Macbook Pro Intel.

When the screen is closed to 45 degrees, the lines disappear. Posting here to raise further issues to this.

Hi all, I know I'm a little late to the game on this, but I wanted to provide some hopefully "helpful" input on this.

I experienced this issue in February of 2025: 2019 16" A2141 with i9/64GB RAM/8GB GPU/2TB SSD.

A lot of the research I did concluded (in the majority) that the display itself (and the internal electronics behind the retina display) was faulty. So I took the plunge, and bought a mint condition A2141 16" laptop from a business that sells off-lease laptops for $520 to do the repair/swap myself. Why not just move over to the new one? Because the "spare for parts" Macbook was an i7 with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD.

I was hesitant, but followed a great YouTube video on how to replace the screen (Look up this title in YouTube by TekDep: "Cracked Screen? No Problem! MacBook Pro 16" A2141 LCD Assembly Replacement How to Guide"). I setup both laptops in front of me, and performed the exact same step on each unit one at a time. The result? I have a perfectly good working display on my high end Macbook Pro, and I have a perfectly working "spare for parts" Macbook that will work fine if I connect to an external display. Just for fun, I took my defective display and installed it on the "spare for parts" device, and it displayed the same behaviour; horizontal lines across the screen, and if I lower the screen angle to a 45 degree angle, lines disappear.

I'm very confident that this is an engineering oversight, where some quality in the parts was compromised to achieve the thinness of the amazing Retina display.

I've attached before and after pics from the repair, good luck all.

[Edited by Moderator]

I am experiencing this same issue. I took my Macbook to Apple two weeks ago and was immediately quoted nearly $700 to repair the screen. I took it back 8 days ago while I was visiting Apple for my iPad which is also giving me issues. They quoted me a $355 trade-in value and said the lines are not a factor and do not affect the trade-in value. I left it with them overnight, they ran a diagnostic and said it would be $598 + tax to repair. Today I went to Apple to trade it in and now they tell me I won't get anything for it. A supervisor came over and told me whoever looked at it before filling out the trade-in questions was wrong because $355 is the max and it has no trade-in value. The supervisor didn't have anything to say other than telling me she didn't know why they quoted me anything more than $0. I have a 2019 so the Applecare I purchased with the laptop has run out. If you take it to Apple without AppleCare, the only solution they offer is to pay $600+ to fix it and you only get a 1 year warranty on the fix. Or of course, you can buy a brand new laptop and pay more than double what it costs to fix it while getting nothing for your laptop because it has horizontal lines on it.

Yes I have just developed the same problem with my 16" MacBook Pro 2019. Same issue; close the screen a bit and the lines disappear. I am hoping I can plug into an external screen and ignore the problem for the time being, but was hoping for another three years of service at least, on what was an expensive piece of kit and with what should have been a good resale value. Always well looked after. One thought: this issue only arose after I installed the latest Sequoia software. Have people experienced a similar issue? There are no fixes it appears.

I am facing the same problem in my MacBook Pro 2019 16" , it started today. The lines disappears when I close the screen to 45 degrees and appears again if the angle is >45 degrees. I could see thousands of Mac users facing the same problem, hardware replacement seems too expensive. Is there any other working solution ?

orin146 wrote:

Apple, how are you not going to respond here with a solution??

Welcome to the Apple User-to-User discussions forums.

Readers are other Users like you. Apple does not monitor the forums for technical issues, and only respounds when a discussion goes completely unanswered for days. Otherwise, NO official response are provided here, and the discussions are not tracked or tabulated.

If other Users are unable to make enough helpful suggestions to solve your problem, you should contact official Apple Support.

Official Apple Support

.

I have totally the same situation today.

Did you manage to fix the problem?

Same here on M1-Pro 2021 14" Macbook Pro bought in 2022. Opened the computer last night, no water, never dropped it, always try to keep the dust out, and I find this.

The "ME TOO" button show 1966 people having the same issue, this is completely unacceptable and for me it's the last straw with Apple computers.. never going to buy one again. Apple needs to own up to their product defects and start rewarding their customers for spending the amount of money they're asking, instead of profiting off every single defect. A complete disgrace

Add me to the list. Yesterday (8/14/24) my MBP 13" (2018) developed a screen full of black horizontal lines. It looks to be every 16th line of pixels. Very consistent. After reading this thread, I slowly closed the screen and (surprise, surprise) at about 45 degrees, the lines disappear. There seems to be a little screen flicker from time to time as well. The lines can even reverse, with white horizontal lines on a black background- interestingly, when I took a ss of this, the ss looks fine (those lines didn't show up). So what does that tell us as far as trouble-shooting?

Given the age of my computer, I think I'll be replacing rather than repairing (although I really am going to miss the LED ribbon!). I think it's shocking how prevalent this problem is with Apple, so the question is- replace with an M4 MBP when they arrive, or jump ship?

I have had a similar issue recently, found a very thin vertical line across display. I just bought my M2 Air not more than a month ago, it suddenly appear to me yesterday. Then I took real notice, and got really scared. Most of articles i found online would suggest some kinda damage and rest will ask you to install cleanMyMac to run tests(lol).

Anyways I search for diagnostics, found wireless diagnostics, ran it. Then i tried inverting color from settings, then i didn't found the line. I tried deadpixel test online, looking at the display really carefully in complete white color. But it was gone. I have no idea how or why. And it was not there earlier than I noticed, i can assure that.

I have had this happening to 2 Macbook Pro's within 6 months. Both handled with care. One is a 2021 Macbook Pro at 4 KUSD. The fact that Apple products command high price tags is manageable since I am not forced to buy them. The fact that they turn out to be **once I have paid 2x vs. a PC is something completely different.

[Edited by Moderator]

I repaired my MacBook Pro with a new screen for 1 KUSD. It was not the screen cable but the tiniest of tiny "point of impact" at the bottom of the screen as the nice guy at the repair shop called it. He explained that the fit between the screen and the body of the newer Macs is so tight and the new screens are so sensitive that a grain of sand can cause the damage when you close the screen against the body. He had noticed a clear increase of screen damages in recent years. My old Macs were certainly not that sensitive. Now I have to basically use a piece of clean cloth to wipe any potential dust away before closing the screen. Well, at least the service was quick - one hour from leaving the Mac to pickup.

charliestudio

I am still running Monterey on my 2018 MBP and have the same problem, so it can't really be the OS. To me it has to be the connection between the computer and the screen (what we used to call the ribbon). Such as shame that Apple chooses to ignore this relatively common problem that seems to occur across many years and models. Many of us have specifically posted how carefully we handle our MBPs, which makes it that much more annoying.

I've been experiencing the same issue for several months now. I’m using a MacBook Pro 2017. I'm not sure if it's related to a recent OS update, the issue comes after updating new OS. I've tried resetting the SMC, PRAM, and NVRAM, but the issue persists. I consulted someone, and they suggested that my screen might be broken, but I don't think that’s the case—it seems like either a hardware or software issue.

The problem is that black horizontal lines only appear on the screen when it's static, meaning when I'm not using the keyboard or mouse. As soon as I interact with the keyboard or move the mouse, the black lines gradually disappear. If I connect an external monitor, the black horizontal lines also disappear completely.

I'm really confused and not sure what the problem is. Now I can't bring laptop to use anywhere since I have to connected it with external monitor to work.

Can anyone help with a solution?

I have a Macbook Air 15inch M3, purchased from Costco in May of 2024. It has developed the weird horizontal lines that cover the entire screen and overlay all windows. The 45 degree angle thing seems to make them unable for me to see, but that might just be due to that being an unsuitable viewing angle--meaning I can't see anything at that angle really, so not a big surprise that I can't see the faint, corrugated lines that cover my screen. It makes watching anything a bit annoying, as they appear everywhere and almost make the images look like corduroy patterned. I have not moved my computer from my desk in over a month, and I am careful with it when I do move it / take it with me. I am not sure when exactly this started, but it seems like maybe it came with my last major update to Sequoia.