I’m having trouble getting Anydesk to show both of my monitors when I connect to my remote PC. Right now, I can only see one screen at a time and can’t figure out how to switch or view both at once. Does anyone know how to use dual monitors with Anydesk or if there are specific settings I should change?
The Wild Ride of Dual Monitors on AnyDesk
Alright, gather 'round if you’ve ever felt like remote-controlling a PC with two screens via AnyDesk is kind of holding a fistful of spaghetti. It works—but sometimes you’re wrestling more with the interface than actually working.
What Usually Gets Things Unstuck
Click-Fest Mode
Noticed how that screen switcher up top (little monitor icon on the toolbar) will let you flip between active displays one by one? You’ve gotta click it way more often than you’d think. Sometimes AnyDesk gets amnesia and forgets which screen you want.
Playing the “Show All Displays” Game
There’s this option called “Show all displays” buried in the toolbar. Depending on the mood AnyDesk is in that day, sometimes it’ll default to just one single monitor. Toggle that setting back and forth—it either solves everything instantly or does absolutely nothing, so… flip it anyway.
The Not-So-Obvious Fix: Verify Both Monitors Are Actually On
No joke: I’ve lost hours wondering why I can’t remote into a second display, only to discover someone at the office turned the monitor off, or unplugged it to plug in their fan. Make sure the physical screens are awake and hooked up.
Classic Windows Shenanigans
Double-check your Windows Display settings. If it’s set to duplicate, disabled, or “show on 1 only,” you’re basically fighting the laws of physics. In Display Settings, “Extend” is your golden ticket.
The Apple Trap
If you’re working on a Mac, open up Displays in System Preferences. macOS loves randomly rearranging monitors or hiding them behind some mysterious permissions panel. Sometimes you’ve got to explicitly allow screen recording if things go black.
The “I Only Upgrade When Forced” Problem
Don’t be that person running AnyDesk 11.2 when everyone else is on 23.4 or whatever. Outdated clients mess with multi-monitor like nothing else. Update you and update them.
Mystery of the Black Screen: Detective Mode
Suddenly one of your screens is just a void of darkness? That’s usually because of permissions (thanks, macOS Screen Recording!) or your graphics drivers are auditioning for “America’s Next Top Bug.” Check both, and don’t be afraid to restart everything.
Can’t See Both Monitors at All? Classic Settings Snafu
Every time I’m stuck seeing just one monitor, it’s always been either a settings hiccup or some ancient version of AnyDesk. Seriously, nine times out of ten, it’s user error or a prehistoric app.
In short: if multitasking on AnyDesk has you flipping tables, start with these. Sometimes it’s settings, sometimes it’s version mismatches, and every now and then—just a ghost in the wires. Hope this helps someone else who keeps yelling at their remote screen!
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Ugh yes, AnyDesk and dual monitors, my old nemesis. Not gonna repeat what @mikeappsreviewer said (thx for screen icon tip tho)—but I have a different take. Forget toggling like a caffeinated hamster between screens, just resize your AnyDesk window to crazy-wide (if you’re on a wide enough local setup yourself). Sometimes that triggers it to show both remote displays in a single mega-window. Will it be pretty? Nope. Does it squish your taskbars into someone’s fever-dream? Absolutely. But it works for glancing between both at once, at a painful, squashed ratio.
Also, you ever try disabling hardware acceleration on the remote side? For me, with older GPUs, AnyDesk would just howl and render only one monitor. Turn off “hardware acceleration” in AnyDesk’s Display settings; sometimes then both monitors pop up like they realized they forgot to clock in for work.
Not gonna lie though—dual monitor support on AnyDesk is about as reliable as my internet used to be in 2002. It sometimes gets fixed with “show all displays,” but I’ve also noticed logging in with two concurrent sessions (one AnyDesk window open for each screen) works WAY more consistently if you absolutely need separate views. Split your sessions, drag one window to each side of your local setup, and boom—fake dual screens.
Anyone else hate the “show all displays” janky scaling, or is it just me? At this point, I just accept my fate.
I see what @mikeappsreviewer and @boswandelaar are getting at (and yeah, that “show all displays” thing is more of a dice roll than an actual solution sometimes), but honestly, the real culprit with AnyDesk and dual monitors is that it just doesn’t treat them like actual, separate entities unless you force it with a crowbar and some luck.
Here’s my straight-shoot: AnyDesk’s multi-monitor is janky by design, and half the usual fixes are “eh, it worked for me ONCE.” The mega-wide window trick is…creative, but gets messy if your local setup isn’t ultrawide. Toggling between screens is a pain—like tabbing between VHS tapes in 1998. Frankly, I avoid “Show All” because at that point, what you get is a panoramic postage stamp. Useless if you need to actually SEE what’s on both screens.
What’s worked for me (sometimes, at least):
- Check if you have the “Interactive Access” set up right on the remote machine—if there’s a permissions hangup, you’ll see less screens or just black void.
- Bizarrely, swapping the monitor “order” in the physical Windows Display Settings (like dragging 1 and 2 to swap sides) sometimes wakes AnyDesk up, then swap them back. No, I have no idea why.
- There’s a hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Arrow) that cycles screens; not any faster than clicking, but maybe less mouse rage.
- If you’re desperate and need true dual-monitor for extended work, I’ve honestly just used Chrome Remote Desktop because it treats each screen as a tab. Sacrilegious to mention here, but hey.
Sidenote, hardware acceleration on or off has never really changed much for me (sry @boswandelaar), but updating graphics drivers is worth a try if you’re running ghetto hardware.
In summary: AnyDesk and dual displays is 70% persistence, 20% obscure settings, and 10% sacrificing your sanity to the remote gods. But if you really, really need two screens at once—sometimes, using two sessions side-by-side (as mentioned above) is the only way to do it clean. If someone finds a magic secret combo, share it before AnyDesk “fixes” it in the next update and breaks five other things.