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mdctl edid

Print what one display says about itself.

mdctl edid <reference>

Arguments

Argument Type Required Meaning
reference string Yes The display, spelled the way `displays` prints it.

What it prints

One field per line: the display, where the answer came from, and the identity fields the display declares.

What one display says about itself: manufacturer, product, serial, when it was made, and its native size.

mdctl edid physical:A1B2C3D4-5E6F-4071-8293-A4B5C6D7E8F9
display   physical:A1B2C3D4-5E6F-4071-8293-A4B5C6D7E8F9
source    the panel's own EDID, as macOS decoded it
name      Studio Display
vendor    APP (1552)
model     41005
serial    1234567
made      week 33, 2022
native    5120x2880

It is not the EDID block, and it does not pretend to be

Apple silicon publishes no raw EDID: IODisplayEDID is simply absent from the registry. What it does publish is DisplayAttributes, the same information already decoded. That is the whole of what a read back can honestly be here, and it is the useful half, because nobody reads a hex block to work out which monitor they are looking at.

The source line is the point, not a footnote

“What the panel says” and “what this app wrote when it made the display” are different claims, and a report that blurs them is worse than no report. The second line always says which one you are looking at.

mdctl edid virtual:4C2E9A31-7F0B-4E58-9C1D-8A0F2B6D5E77
display   virtual:4C2E9A31-7F0B-4E58-9C1D-8A0F2B6D5E77
source    what MoreDisplays wrote when it created this display
name      Home ultrawide
vendor    MD (19780)
model     1
native    5120x1440

Exit codes

The same four across every command, so a script can branch on the number without knowing which command produced it.

Code Name When
0 ok The command succeeded.
1 commandFailed The app understood the command and refused or failed it. The reason is on stderr.
2 usage The arguments were wrong. Nothing was sent.
3 appNotRunning No app is listening on the socket.