How to unlock 4K 60Hz on a Mac when using an external monitor.

TLDR: It’s the cable. Check out the link on the bottom of this article to a cable that fixed the issue for me.

I’m usually an iMac user so when I plugged my MacBook Pro to a 4K monitor for the first time I was in for a surprise. The resolution was way too low but I was able to adjust that quickly to a more pleasing option. But there was a bigger problem, I couldn’t choose anything above 30Hz for the refresh rate.

“Whatever, I’ll figure it out later” I thought. Five minutes later I was pulling my hair out. I never really realized how important this is for any type of work. 30Hz is just unusable, everything looks very choppy and any task becomes really, really annoying. I couldn’t use my email let alone do any type of video work. It hurts your eyes. I had to find a solution, quick.

Does your cable support 4K 60Hz?

My first assumption was that the cable I was using simply didn’t support 4K at 60Hz. I had grabbed whatever HDMI cable I had lying around and plugged that in with Apple’s HDMI adapter. That must be it, it’s an old cable and probably can’t handle 60Hz.

I got on Amazon, ordered a high-end 4K 60Hz compatible HDMI cable and assumed that was it. A few days later when the cable arrived I plugged it in and… I was still stuck at 30Hz. What? Digging through System Settings, double-checking I had ordered the right cable and running through 3rd party apps to see if that’s what I needed to unlock 60Hz on this damn 4K monitor… but nothing worked. At some point I was convinced it was the HDMI adapter I was using but after trying a couple of different 4K 60Hz compatible HDMI adapters I learned it’s not the adapter and I was still stuck at the awful 30Hz refresh rate and ready to toss the whole monitor out the window.

HDMI won’t work, you need DisplayPort.

After a lot of research, I learned that the MacBook Pro I was using simply was not capable of doing 4K 60Hz using an HDMI cable. To unlock 4K at 60Hz you need a Thunderbolt 3 (or a USB-C) to a DisplayPort cable. Sounds weird, but okay. I got on Amazon, again, and ordered a cable that met these requirements. A few days go by, the cable arrives, I plug it in and… boom. 4K 60Hz was instantly available. And let me tell you, after being stuck at 30Hz for a week at this point… let’s just say unlocking 60Hz felt good.

This was a few years ago. My MacBook Pro has since been updated to a 16″ M1 Max model and I’m also using an M1 MacBook Air on the side but they both have the same issue. Or it’s not really an issue anymore, but you’d think the latest models can output 60Hz via HDMI.

Here’s an Amazon link to the cable I’ve been using successfully with all three laptops: https://amzn.to/3Lqpggw

I just talked to someone this week who had spent hours researching the same issue and he was still stuck with no answer, so I wanted to put this out there in case others are struggling with the same problem. If this was helpful drop a comment below and share the post so we can make sure no one has to suffer with the awful 30Hz refresh rate.

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