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I just bought a second monitor which I've placed on a stand above my macbook. It seems to be working great but I can't move any application windows on to it because it's also above the menu bar. Is there a way to be able to move windows above the menu bar to the secondary monitor without having to put the menu bar on it too?

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What OS X Version are you running? – MrDaniel Apr 24 '12 at 12:10
I'm on OS X 10.7.3 – Trindaz Apr 25 '12 at 21:47

2 Answers

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SOLUTION: Move your mouse, while dragging a window, up through the menubar faster.

  1. Go to System Preferences -> Display.
  2. Select the Arrangement tab, and arrange the secondary monitor so that it sits on top of your MacBook monitor.

You should be able to move your application window up to the secondary monitor now.

As mentioned in the comments, if the menu bar is blocking you from moving windows up to your secondary monitor: go to the Arrangement tab and drag the little menubar representation from one screen to the other.

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Thanks revolver but I've already done that. The problem is that now I can't drag any windows up there - they get blocked by the menu bar. – Trindaz Apr 24 '12 at 4:20
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Weird. It works for me though, I can drag my window all the way to the secondary monitor although the menubar is in between the 2 monitors. I am on Lion. – revolver Apr 24 '12 at 4:21
It's easy to confuse which display is on the top versus the bottom. Try dragging the window down...if it shows up on the 2nd monitor you have the arrangement backwards. – Larry Apr 24 '12 at 12:26
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Which screen has the menubar? The laptop's internal display or the external? You might need to have the menubar on the external for this to work. How to do this: on the Arrangement tab, just drag the little menubar representation from one screen to the other. Don't worry, when you unplug, the menubar will revert back to the internal. – Adam Rice Jul 15 '12 at 22:55
You can drag the menubar??? Mind. Blown. THANK YOU. That fixed the issue for me. – Matt Mar 7 at 15:38
up vote 4 down vote

I had the same problem with a secondary display that was at a lower resolution than my MBP display. OS X would not let me drag a window above the menu bar UNLESS I resized it so that it was small enough to be entirely contained within the smaller resolution of my secondary display. When I did that, it worked every time.

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My secondary display is larger, but making the window smaller still made it possible to move it. – Stiggler Nov 15 '12 at 18:00

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