One of the options offered by monitors that work with retina resolutions is the possibility to reduce or increase scaling, playing with the resolution and therefore adjusting to what seems most appropriate to our needs. Now that I’m working with a 4K monitor and my Mac mini M1, for example, I’ve opted for upscaling between 1080p and native 4K resolution.
However, you might want to be more specific in these scalings because you need very specific resolution or just on a whim. There is no problem: macOS has a hidden function that, if enabled, gives you more scaling options for your monitor.
Your monitor, your resolution
These are the options that appear when you have a monitor capable of working with retina resolutions: you can use the one you have by default (on a 4K monitor you would use 1080p resolution with scaling), or choose between one of the scalings to adjust to what you prefer. You have five options available:
But there is a trick that expands these options. Select the default screen resolution, press ALT and without releasing this key, select the “Adjusted” option again. You will see that the options change to a list of concrete resolutions with more alternatives to select:
There is also the option of enable low resolution modes, although this is already reserved for those who want to see the elements of the system at a very large size.
Keep in mind that using these resolutions may not give quite the right result depending on the monitor you are using, so I do not guarantee perfect experiences. If you are using an Apple monitor or an iMac, it is best to use the native resolution with the retina scale set by default.
