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I'm wondering if it's possible to daisy-chain my two Dell U2417H monitors with my MacBook Pro (2019 - 16 inch), which has 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports.

I've seen a few "no" answers relating to older Macs, have Apple decided/announced support for daisy-chaining since.

If not, can anyone recommend an alternative way to connect two monitors + peripherals with minimal cables into the Mac?

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  • These monitors do have a DP-in and DP-out ports so theoretically if you have a thunderbolt to DP adapter/cable from your Mac to the DP-IN port and then a thunderbolt cable from monitor 1 to monitor 2, but I have seen things like this fail to work just because of the way each mfg. supports the display port technology. I'd say it is worth a shot if you buy your cables from someplace with a "no questions asked" return policy.
    – Steve Chambers
    Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 16:25
  • If you're in the EU & buy online, you already get a 14-day 'no questions asked' return policy, by law - though you may have to pay the return postage. [I doubt any computer shops are open anyway]
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 17:03

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Unfortunately, Apple (macOS) doesn't support this.

(IMO) it's a weird situation because the hardware supports it and you can actually accomplish it in Windows via Bootcamp. For whatever reason, (I suspect "user experience" because it can get tricky to set up correctly) Apple chose to not implement it.

If not, can anyone recommend an alternative way to connect two monitors + peripherals with minimal cables into the Mac?

The best way is to use a dock

See this post for a solution to connect multiple monitors and multiple peripherals: Easiest way to connect two non-thunderbolt monitors to my MacBook Pro 2017 and charge it at the same time?

You would have to use 2 Thunderbolt cables, but if you get a charging dock over one port you could drive a monitor, charge your device and support your peripherals while another TB port drives the second monitor. This would limit the number of cables to just 2 - which isn't so bad considering if this was 2013, you'd have three - the MagSafe adapter cable to deal with.

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  • Thanks a lot. Do you know of any docks that can have two video ports (e.g. allowing only one usb c / thunderbolt cable into the mac for both charging and displays)? I imagine such a dock would be pricey so I'm more asking out of interest as it seems like something that could be possible.
    – Tom C.
    Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 17:54
  • Most do, but that's not the issue. On the link I provided (Lenovo) one of the issues was that on that dock with two monitors connected, the displays were mirrored. The dock doesn't add additional graphics bandwidth to what the computer provides. So, if you couldn't daisy chain there, the dock won't enable you to daisy chain either.
    – Allan
    Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 17:57

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