If you have an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro and an old Intel iMac, I made an open-source way to use it as a second display
I wanted to share this because it may be useful to other MacBook Pro owners with an older Intel iMac sitting around.
I built an open-source tool called TargetBridge that lets an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro use an Intel iMac (2017+) as an external display over a direct Thunderbolt connection.
Why I made it:
Apple dropped Target Display Mode years ago, but a lot of those older iMacs still have great 4K/5K panels. I wanted a practical way to reuse one with a newer MacBook Pro instead of letting it collect dust.
What the current stable release supports:
- direct Thunderbolt connection
- mirror mode
- extended desktop mode
- stream profiles up to 5K HEVC
Stable release:
v1.3.0
Requirements:
- Apple Silicon MacBook Pro as sender
- Intel iMac 2017+ as receiver
- Thunderbolt cable
- macOS 14+ on the MacBook Pro
- macOS 13+ on the receiver
Important note:
the stable release is v1.3.0. I’m working on multi-display improvements right now, but those are still in development and not what I’m recommending people use yet.
I’m mainly posting this here because I think the use case fits this subreddit well:
if you have a MacBook Pro and a beautiful old iMac panel, this gives it a second life.
If people are interested, I can share setup steps, compatibility notes, and the GitHub/release link in the comments.
