Last updated on May 5th, 2023 at 04:33 pm
There are a lot of reasons to like your MacBook Air. It’s very lightweight, it has a long battery life, and the keyboard and touchpad are outstanding. You can read our review to see more of what we thought of the 2012 MacBook Air. But it is still a 13-inch laptop, which means that the screen is not very large. Many laptops in today’s market include an HDMI port to allow for you to connect your computer to your TV, but the MacBook Air doesn’t have one of those. Luckily there is a cheap and simple solution that will allow you to display your MacBook Air screen on any HDTV with an HDMI port.
Connect the MacBook Air to a Screen with an HDMI Port
What you will need:
2012 MacBook Air
HDTV with an HDMI port
Thunderbolt to HDMI video adapter with audio support
Once you have acquired all of the necessary cables, the entire setup process will take about a minute.
Step 1: Connect one end of the HDMI cable to the HDMI port on the Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter.
Step 2: Connect the Thunderbolt end of the Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter to the Thunderbolt port on your MacBook Air.
Step 3: Connect the other end of the HDMI cable to the HDMI port on your TV.
Step 4: Turn on the TV, and switch the input to the HDMI port to which the MacBook Air is now connected. You will see your MacBook’s screen on your TV if everything is set up correctly. You do not need to change anything on your MacBook Air to enable this display setup. It will work automatically once all of the cables are connected.
If you have an Apple TV, then you can also use AirPlay Mirroring to view your MacBook screen on your TV. However, there can be a bit of lag when you do this, which can make typing or precision editing somewhat difficult. Using the HDMI setup is a better solution if you want to use the larger TV screen as a second display. I prefer to use AirPlay Mirroring to watch things like Amazon Instant Video, for which there is not yet an Apple TV app.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.
His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.
