Comments on: Sidecar not working in iPadOS and macOS? How to fix Sidecar problems

By: Mauro

Mauro — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 01:33:02 +0000

The USB cable connection worked after these steps:

1) Remove all sharing options in MacOs > System Preferences > Sharing
2) Restart the device, with the USB cable still connected
3) Open the device from Finder

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 16:11:13 +0000

I’ve tried all of these options and unfortunately nothing works; my device still just says “Device timed out” when I try to connect it. This is a bummer and makes me not want to purchase Apple products moving forward since this was a big part of the reason I ever purchased an iPad in the first place.

By: Eric Booth

Eric Booth — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 02:26:15 +0000

I had the same problem of Sidecar not connecting. Said it had Timed Out. The problem for me was I had a remote mouse program running in the background on my Mac Mini. Turned it off and everything worked just fine. Only took 5 hours of troubleshooting to figure this out. Said remote mouse software has been uninstalled from both iPad and Mac Mini. Works like a charm now.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:13:56 +0000

Here is one more thing to check. Has the name of your iPad changed? I chatted with 90 minutes with Apple Care Support yesterday because SideCar over wifi, which had worked perfectly for me ever since SideCar came out, stopped working. All the settings needed to support SideCar were correct.
I happened to notice that when I used an older MacBook Pro, that SideCar worked over Wifi except it the iPad showed up in the SideCar panel with the name I had given the iPad when I first set it up. Somehow the name of my iPad had reverted from the name I gave it to just “iPad”. I changed the name of the iPad back to the name I had given it, and I could connect with SideCar over wifi again from the MacBook Pro that wasn’t connecting over wifi.

By: Kevin Purcell

Kevin Purcell — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 22:18:33 +0000

None of this worked for me until I opened Finder and found my iPad listed on the left-hand side towards the bottom. Then I clicked that and there was a question to trust the connection with the iPad. I did this on my MacBook Pro. That may help some.

By: Mohamed Hasan Al Lawati

Mohamed Hasan Al Lawati — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 20:50:43 +0000

Hello dear,
Thank you very much because of providing all these solutions in order to fix sidecar issue. In fact, I have tried to apply all these solutions with no luck. However, the only solution that fixed my sidecar issue easily is to Reset All Settings in iPad Pro 11. It fixed the issue immediately.

Thank you again.

By: Arnoud Steemann

Arnoud Steemann — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 07:47:22 +0000

Thanks for the write-up on the sidecar connection issues. None of these solutions worked for me though, and I kept on getting this device timed out message. Then I recalled that a dongle connected via the USB-C port can interfere with the wifi. Although I was working on a 5G connection that is not (or less) affected, the connection with my iPad worked instantly when I disconnected the dongle. This may suggest that a dongle can interfere with the sidecar connection even though the internet connection is 5G. I now connect my dongle at the left side of my MacBook Pro and have not experienced any further problems.
I have to add that the dongle interference is not consistent. I have worked with the dongle connected on the right side of my MBP for some time without sidecar problems. But for now, it works.

By: Elizabeth Jones

Elizabeth Jones — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 17:07:04 +0000

In reply to blob.

Hi Bob,

First, make sure you enabled Handsoff on your iPad (Settings > General > Handoff) and Mac (Apple menu > System Preferences > General and select “Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices” )

If you use a VPN on either device, temporarily disable it.

On your Mac, check any login items listed in System Preferences > Users & Groups. Remove any login items (you can add them back)

Then turn on iCloud keychain on both your iPad and Mac in iCloud’s settings.

By: blob

blob — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 15:54:14 +0000

Hello, I’m having trouble getting my iPad to work with SideCar over a wireless connection (works with a wired connection).

I followed these steps listed above of signing out, rebooting, and signing back into iCloud.

This did allow my iPad to be listed, but now I’m getting error (-6709).

Any idea about what could be happening?

By: Ove Fredriksson

Ove Fredriksson — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 22:12:12 +0000

Wow!
It worked! I got Sidecar to work by logging out of my Apple ID on both the computer and the iPad, ignoring all the scary messages about “removing data”.
Thank you SOO much for your extensive article.

By: Paul Huckit

Paul Huckit — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 18:43:17 +0000

Had VPN on, Cisco Anywhere connect, and could not connect to the ipad. Since it essentially changes the laptops IP address and thus subnet, it can’t route local traffic to the iPad. Not sidecars fault, just the limitations of networking.

By: Elizabeth Jones

Elizabeth Jones — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 21:20:53 +0000

In reply to Bill.

Hi Bill,

You are correct on the resolution issue when using the iPad in Sidecar–at least for now. Most people have not found this a challenge, given how good the iPad manages its display–however it remains an issue.

There are third-party apps that do not reduce the resolution–check out Luna Display and Duet Display. Those may be more in-line with what you want.

Our suggestion if possible (time and location) is to go to an Apple Store and ask them to demonstrate Sidecar for you using the new MacBook and iPad–then you can make your judgment via the evidence and testing.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 20:04:30 +0000

Question: I have the latest iPad Pro 12.9 (late 2018). I am considering buying a newly released Macbook Pro 16″ (late 2019).

If I use Sidecar with this combination will I be using the full resolution of the iPad (2732×2048)?

I have seen comments that lead me to believe that the resolution on the iPad will be cut in half.

If that is the case the lower resolution will not work for me.

By: Elizabeth Jones

Elizabeth Jones — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 23:12:59 +0000

In reply to Jay.

HI Jay,

Sadly, Apple limited which iPads support Sidecar to those models that support the Apple Pencil. And there is no workaround on this unfortunately.

Sidecar-supported iPad models:

• 12.9-inch iPad Pro
• 11-inch iPad Pro
• 10.5-inch iPad Pro
• 9.7-inch iPad Pro
• iPad (6th generation or later)
• iPad mini (5th generation)
• iPad Air (3rd generation)

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 22:20:14 +0000

Hi, thanks for the detailed posting.

I see that there is a workaround to enable sidecar on an older version mac, but what about on an older version ipad?

I’m using Mac pro 2015 (as I type in Sidecar on spotlight, the function appears tho there’s no such thing on my Settings), AND iPad Mini 4.

So even tho I open the terminals on my mac and copy and paste the command, it still says that I need to connect to a device (while ipad is connected by the USB).

Is that because it still doesn’t recognize an older version of ipad?

Would appreciate your help so much!

By: JohnIL

JohnIL — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 11:17:18 +0000

I tried it with my 6th gen iPad and worked fine, although I did not find it that useful with my MacBook Air. Mostly because the 9.7 inch screen is too small and dragging anything from my MBA to iPad sometimes doesn’t fit screen properly. It also would be a bit more useful if the MacBooks had touch screens so that you could use the Pencil option on both the Mac and iPad. Also limiting the Side Car feature to iPad’s with Pencil support, and Mac’s with SkyLake or newer CPU’s sort of limits the appeal. I am sure this would be a more useful feature on a bigger iPad Pro model. However for myself if I want more screen I would probably just connect to a desktop monitor.

By: exnsmoag

exnsmoag — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 20:58:01 +0000

Ok, I tried all of these on my Macbook Pro and iPad Pro. Terminal commands to get Sidecar to appear in System Prefences do nothing more than that. The iPad is seen in Finder and trusted, I have signed in and out of the same account multiple times. I have to keep in mind this is software brought to you by the people who created iTunes.

By: Allan

Allan — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 12:50:11 +0000

Sidecar is still not working with a wired connection even after iPados 13.2 and Catalina 10.15.1. This has been reported everywhere since early betas of Catalina and apple has done nothing about it. I bought an iPad purely because of Sidecar and it only works on wifi which means I cannot charge my iPad without having to carry two chargers.
Apple are really annoying me lately. Catalina and iOS/iPadOS 13 are so full of bugs they are almost unusable for professionals.

By: Dani

Dani — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 00:16:02 +0000

Such a helpful article, thank you!

Sidecar was only working for me with a wired connection. Tried everything, even disabling Today View “Keep on Home Screen” feature, but nothing worked until I turned off iCloud on both the iPad and iMac.

It was a bit of a pain, all the restarting and waiting for iCloud apps to reload on both devices, but totally worth it to have a wire free set up. Love it!

Thanks again 🙂

By: Elizabeth Jones

Elizabeth Jones — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 18:21:21 +0000

In reply to Dude Duderson.

Hi Dude,

Thanks for sharing this tip! Never thought of that.

Liz