Apple - Can I connect three monitors and provide power to my MacBook Pro with a single cable?

Official Apple specs

Officially your MBP supports two external displays at up to a maximum resolution of 4,096 x 2,304 pixels at 60 Hz at millions of colours or a single external display at a maximum resolution of up to 5,120 x 2,880 at 60 Hz at over a billion colours.

So, running the two external displays along with your built-in display is officially supported.

Unofficial real-life scenarios

However, unofficially you can exceed this. More specifically I've seen a user connect three external displays while in clamshell mode. However, this did seem to result in the MBP's fans spinning at a higher rate when they were watching videos, playing games, etc. Not something I would really recommend.

Your setup

So, I wouldn't recommend three external displays. But, as for your setup, you say that you only have one free USB Type-C port. So for you to do what you want may require you using your ports differently so that you have at least two displays connected directly, and another different display connected via an adapter and your other devices connected via a dock or hub.


No. Thunderbolt 3 doesn’t chain video, just the thunderbolt data. What protocol you are feeding to the display and the diplay size will limit your options.

  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207448
  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204154

For example, the LG 5k displays are thunderbolt and you get two, one on each side of the MacBook Pro. HDMI adapter might let you chain a second display from a primary display based on the quality of the hub and the resolution on both, but I am 90% certain that won’t work either. Plan on one display per physical port on the Mac.


Now, some displays will mirror the same DisplayPort stream apparently. I haven't seen this but have no reason to suspect these reports aren't 100% correct.

  • El Capitan and Daisy Chaining
  • Display Daisy-Chaining with High Sierra