Using a vertical monitor with a Mac

A monitor turned on its side is great for code, long documents, chat and feeds. macOS supports it out of the box; the catch is that most window layouts are designed for wide screens. Here’s how to rotate and arrange the display, what macOS tiling gives you on a tall screen, and how to get rows that actually fit. Setting up a second screen from scratch? Start with our MacBook dual monitor setup guide.

Steps checked against Apple’s Mac User Guide (macOS 27) on October 21, 2026.

1. Rotate the display in System Settings

Before you turn the hardware, check your monitor’s manual to make sure it can be used rotated. Then, from Apple’s guide to rotating the image on your Mac display:

1. Choose Apple menu › System Settings, then click Displays in the sidebar (you may need to scroll down).
2. Select the monitor you’re turning, click the pop-up menu next to Rotation, and choose how many degrees to rotate: 90° or 270°, depending on which way you turn it.
3. Click Confirm in the dialog that appears, then physically rotate the monitor on its stand or arm.

To go back to landscape, choose Standard from the same menu. If there’s no Rotation menu at all, that’s expected for some setups: Apple’s Displays settings reference says the option appears only when a compatible external display is connected, so a MacBook’s built-in screen won’t offer it.

2. Arrange it next to your main screen

Once rotated, the display’s outline in Displays settings becomes tall and narrow. Use Arrange in the same Displays settings to drag it to where it physically sits (left or right of your main screen) and line up its edge, so your pointer crosses between screens where you expect. The arrangement view is also where you can move the menu bar to another screen. Make sure the display is set to extend your desktop, not mirror it (the Use as menu; see Apple’s extend or mirror guide), or you’ll get a squashed copy of your main screen.

3. What macOS tiling does on a tall screen

On macOS 15 and later, the built-in tiling shortcuts work on any display, rotated or not (Apple’s tiling shortcuts). On a portrait monitor, the ones worth learning are:

What’s missing is thirds. A tall monitor is the place where three stacked rows (say a browser, a terminal and a chat) make the most sense, and macOS stops at halves and quarters. For more on the built-in options, see how to tile windows on a Mac.

4. Apps that handle portrait screens

Several window managers adjust to rotation. Both descriptions below are from their own pages, checked October 21, 2026:

• Rectangle (free): its README says screen orientation is taken into account for thirds: “first third will be left third on landscape and top third on portrait.” So the same thirds shortcuts give you stacked rows on a vertical monitor. See our Rectangle comparison.
• Magnet ($4.99 on the Mac App Store as of October 19, 2026): its website says it “adapts smoothly to vertical screens” and lets you create thirds along the sides on a vertical display. See our Magnet comparison.

Both are good choices if equal thirds are what you want.

5. Uneven rows with Screen Divider

Equal thirds aren’t always right on a portrait screen. Often you want a big area for the thing you read, with one or two short strips for things you glance at. Screen Divider keeps a separate layout for each connected display, so you can set the vertical monitor up on its own:

1. Click the menu bar icon and choose Edit Layouts, then pick the vertical display.
2. Select a zone and split it into two or three rows (or columns).
3. Select adjacent cells and Merge them: for example, merge the top two of three rows into one tall zone for your editor and keep the bottom row for a terminal.
4. Drag a window toward the screen; an overlay shows the zone, and letting go snaps and resizes the window into it.

Your main landscape screen keeps its own columns. If you’re coming from Windows and used PowerToys for this, the FancyZones for Mac guide shows how those layouts translate.

FAQ