Support

Getting started

ProMax Display needs a MacBook with a notch and macOS 27 or later. On a Mac without a notch, full screen already uses the whole display, so there's nothing for it to do. Which Macs.

It lives in two places: a window with a sidebar of pages, and a menu bar icon for quick switches. When you first open it, a short welcome shows what works now and what the one-time setup unlocks.

1. Download ProMax Display from the page you see after buying, or from your receipt email.
2. Open the DMG, drag ProMax Display to Applications, and open it.
3. Activate your licence on the Licence page at the top of the sidebar. See Your licence.

The Overview page shows your screen before and after: the size of full screen today, the size with ProMax Display, and how many extra rows of pixels that is. It also shows how many apps are using the notch row and whether every app is unlocked.

Unlock every app

To make every app fill the notch row, ProMax Display needs a one-time setup. It loads a small add-on into the Dock that tells macOS to let full screen use the strip beside the notch, the way yabai and Sunlight add features to the Dock. Nothing is loaded into your apps.

1. System Integrity Protection, partly off. Done once, from Recovery, by following yabai's guide. ProMax Display needs filesystem protections and debugging restrictions off, and checks both for you.
2. Install the add-on. Click Install on the Unlock Every App page and allow ProMax Display in System Settings General Login Items.

The installation guide walks through both, step by step. Once it's done, the Unlock Every App and Apps pages leave the sidebar, since every app is covered. Apps that were already open need a quit and reopen.

FileVault, the system volume and your apps are untouched.

Apps with their own setting

Without the setup, or before you do it: some apps have their own setting that lets full screen reach the notch row. The Apps page lists the ones installed on your Mac, with a switch for each.

• Switched on for you: Visual Studio Code, Cursor, Zed, Ghostty, kitty, mpv and MacVim. Switch one on from the Apps page and ProMax Display shows exactly which setting it will change, and in which file, before it changes it. Nothing else in the file changes, and switching it off puts back exactly what was there.
• Set in the app itself: iTerm2, WezTerm, Alacritty and Neovide keep the setting somewhere ProMax Display doesn't edit. Click How To for the steps.

Each row also says how to go full screen in that app. In most it's the app's own full screen command (for example View Full Screen, or Control-Command-F). Some apps need a restart to pick up the change, and the Apps page says so when they do.

Games

Games built on SDL (a library many games use) can fill the notch row too. On the Apps page, click Open a Game and pick the game. It opens with full screen reaching the notch row. You can also do this from the menu bar icon: Open a Game in Notch Mode, which stays there once the Apps page has left the sidebar.

For Steam games, copy the launch option from the Apps page into the game's Properties Launch Options in Steam:

SDL_VIDEO_MAC_FULLSCREEN_SPACES=0 %command%

Security

Unlocking every app means turning part of System Integrity Protection off. That's a real trade-off, so here it is plainly. If it doesn't suit you, skip it: ProMax Display still works in the apps with their own setting.

What System Integrity Protection partly off trades away

System Integrity Protection (SIP) is one of macOS's defences. It stops any software, even with your admin password, from changing protected system files or attaching to other processes, including system ones like the Dock. ProMax Display needs two of its parts off: filesystem protections and debugging restrictions.

• With those off, software running on your Mac could change protected system files or interfere with other processes, which SIP would normally block. That includes malware, if any ever got onto your Mac.
• SIP is one layer among several. Gatekeeper, XProtect, notarisation, FileVault and macOS asking for your password all keep working.
• So: keep macOS up to date, run software you trust, and keep backups.
• You can turn SIP back on at any time to undo it. See Uninstall.

What stays as it is

• FileVault stays on. No need to turn it off at any point.
• The system volume isn't changed.
• Your apps aren't changed, and nothing is loaded into them. The add-on lives in the Dock.

What the app asks for

If the trade-off doesn't suit your Mac

If you'd rather not change SIP, or your Mac is managed by an employer whose rules don't allow it, use ProMax Display without the setup. macOS gives apps no other way to let every app's full screen use the strip beside the notch.

Using ProMax Display

Turning it on and off

Once every app is unlocked, the ProMax Display switch on the Overview page turns it on or off for every app. On: full screen fills the notch row in every app, except the ones you exclude. Off: full screen works as normal, below the notch. The same switch is in the menu bar icon's menu.

Excluded apps

To keep an app on macOS's normal full screen, below the notch, add it on the Excluded Apps page. Click + and pick from the apps that are open, or Choose App to find one. Click the minus button next to an app to stop excluding it. Apps read this when they open, so quit and reopen an app after changing it.

Rear-view mirror

With an app in full screen, point into the notch and a live mirror grows out of it, just below the notch, showing what's behind it. Your pointer shows inside it while it's behind the notch, so you can aim at what's there. Move away in any direction and it closes at once, so the page just below the notch works normally.

Switch it on or off on the Rear-View Mirror page. It needs Screen Recording, and the page has an Allow button that takes you to the right place in System Settings. It works once every app is unlocked.

Behind the notch

The part of a full screen app behind the notch still works: it takes hovers and clicks as normal, and the mirror shows you what you're pointing at. Where an app's own toolbar sits behind the notch, its buttons and fields stay the toolbar's.

Menu bar and Dock

• Menu bar: move the pointer to the top edge beside the notch and the menu bar comes down, as it always has. Touching the top edge inside the notch doesn't bring it down, so heading for the mirror never drops the menu bar on you.
• Dock: at its edge, as usual.
• Overlays like Spotlight come first: the mirror keeps out of their way.

Other notch apps

ProMax Display needs the strip beside the notch to itself. Other notch apps, such as Vorssaint and Ocelli, pop open over your full screen app and get in the way of the rear-view mirror. When one is running, Overview and the Rear-View Mirror page list it with a Quit button (and Quit All if there are several), and the menu bar menu offers the same.

Corners

Your screen's top corners are rounded; a full screen app's are square, which shows as you swipe between full screen apps. On the Corners page:

• Round corners like the screen keeps the display's rounded top corners on full screen apps as you swipe between them. On by default.
• Round the bottom corners too gives the bottom corners the same curve, always, so all four match.

Corners work once every app is unlocked.

General

• Open at login.
• Show in menu bar. The menu bar icon has the main switch, the apps' own settings, Open a Game in Notch Mode, Check for Updates and Quit.
• Always show in Dock. Otherwise the Dock icon shows only while the ProMax Display window is open.
• Updates. See Updates.

Trackpad gestures

Like an iPhone: start with two fingers just off the edge of the trackpad and swipe a short way in.

• They follow your fingers. Swipe back the way you came, without lifting, and it closes again. Forward again reopens it, so you can take a quick peek.
• To close, swipe back out towards the edge it came from.
• A Dock you swiped up goes away like the Dock does: if the pointer doesn't go to it within a couple of seconds, or once the pointer has been on it and moves away.
• Scrolling isn't affected. A swipe that isn't one of these is a normal scroll, and the page under the pointer doesn't scroll while you make one.

On the Gestures page, the trackpad picture shows your fingers live, with the three edge areas, so you can practise. Under it, Try it is a checklist of every gesture that ticks each one off as you do it. The gestures need Accessibility, and the page has an Allow button.

Switch apps from the Dock

With the Dock up, swipe up again, then slide left or right: a highlight glides across the Dock with each app's name above it. Your pointer never moves.

• Open or switch: pull your fingers up a little. The label says Release to Switch for an open app, or Release to Open for one that isn't. Let go and it opens.
• Quit: pull your fingers down a little instead. The label says Release to Quit. Let go and the app quits, the same as choosing Quit from its Dock menu, so it can still ask you to save. Works for open apps, not Finder.
• Change your mind: move back the other way and you're choosing again. Let go without pulling up or down and nothing happens.

The trackpad gives a light click when Release to appears. On the Gestures page:

• Switch apps from the Dock turns the switcher on or off.
• Only open apps steps through the apps that are running, skipping the rest of the Dock.
• Switch windows too (off unless you turn it on): at Release to Switch, pull up a little further, then slide to pick one of that app's windows. Let go and that window comes to the front. Only for apps with more than one window.
• Haptic feedback when switching gives a light click on the trackpad as each app is chosen.

Updates

ProMax Display checks for updates automatically. To check now, choose ProMax Display Check for Updates, or use the menu bar icon. Automatic checks can be switched off in General Updates. Every release is listed on What's New.

ProMax Display checks for updates by itself and installs each one with a click. If an update changes the add-on, Overview shows Update ready with a Finish Update button. It restarts the Dock to finish updating, which takes a second, and your windows stay put. macOS may ask you to allow ProMax Display in Login Items again.

You never need to go back to Recovery for an update.

Your licence

• Activate: open Licence at the top of the sidebar and paste the key from your receipt email. Pasting the whole key activates straight away.
• Before it's activated, you can look around and do the setup, but nothing switches on.
• Moving to a new Mac? Click Deactivate This Mac on the Licence page first, to free the activation. Then activate on the new Mac with the same key.
• Offline is fine. ProMax Display checks the licence when it opens, but no internet never switches it off. Only a refund or a deactivation does.

Each licence activates one Mac.

Troubleshooting

An app still stops below the notch

• Quit and reopen it. Apps read the setting when they open.
• Check it isn't on the Excluded Apps page.
• Check the ProMax Display switch on Overview is on, and that the licence is activated.
• For apps on the Apps page, use the full screen command that row describes. Some apps need a restart after the setting changes.

Step 1 says "Partly off, not enough"

One of the two parts ProMax Display needs (filesystem protections, debugging restrictions) is still on. Go back to Recovery and run the command from yabai's guide again.

Step 2 is stuck on "Waiting for the Dock"

Check ProMax Display is switched on in System Settings General Login Items. The page checks again by itself every couple of seconds.

Something pops open over the notch

That's usually another notch app. Quit it from Overview. See Other notch apps.

The mirror doesn't show

Check it's switched on and Screen Recording is allowed, both on the Rear-View Mirror page. It only shows in a full screen app that uses the strip beside the notch, while the pointer is behind the notch.

Gestures don't open anything

Allow Accessibility on the Gestures page, and check Trackpad gestures is on there.

Overview says the Dock crashed twice

If the Dock crashes twice within a few minutes with the add-on in it, ProMax Display stops loading the add-on and full screen goes back to normal, below the notch. It comes back by itself with the next update, or click Turn Back On on Overview. If it keeps happening, email us (below) with your Mac and macOS version.

"Waiting for a ProMax update for this macOS version"

A macOS update changed the Dock in a way this version of ProMax Display hasn't been checked against. Full screen and the gestures keep working; the app switcher shows its own label above the Dock instead of the Dock's. An update to ProMax Display brings the Dock's look back.

Uninstall

1. Remove the add-on. On the General page, click Remove the Add-on. It gives the screen back to macOS and turns full screen back to normal everywhere. It also clears your Excluded Apps list.
2. Switch off the apps' own settings. On the Apps page, switch off any you switched on. Each goes back exactly as it was.
3. Quit ProMax Display and drag it from Applications to the Bin.
4. Turn System Integrity Protection back on, if you like, from Recovery. Apple's guide to enabling System Integrity Protection has the steps.

Already dragged it to the Bin, and now full screen apps look smaller than before, below the notch with a gap? Open ProMax Display once more (from the Bin, or download it again) and click Remove the Add-on: that puts everything back. Or, in Terminal: defaults delete -g NSApplicationSafeApertureCompatibilityModeSystemFullScreen, then quit and reopen your apps.

Privacy

The app has no analytics, tracking or crash reporting. It only goes online to check your licence with Lemon Squeezy and to check for updates. The rear-view mirror shows the screen live and records nothing. The full details are in the Privacy Policy.

Refunds

Every licence comes with a 14-day refund, no questions asked. Email hello@promaxdisplay.com with your order number. A refund deactivates the licence, and ProMax Display switches itself off the next time it opens.

Get help

Email support@promaxdisplay.com. Say which Mac you have, your macOS version, and what you see. A screenshot helps.