Full transcript of “How To Use the Ports On Your Mac Correctly”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Hi, this is Gary with macmo.com. Let's talk about the connection ports on your Mac. So, I often hear from people that they're confused about the ports on the back of their Mac. What can they be used for and which is the proper one to plug various devices into? Here's the back of a 2023 iMac. And you can see there are four small ports at the bottom left. Two of them don't have any label at all and two of them have this little lightning bolt symbol. Let's take a closer look here. And you could see how two are labeled and two aren't. Well, the two unlabeled ones on the left are USB ports. And the two with the little lightning bolts, they are Thunderbolt ports. What's the difference and when
0:46 should you use each one? First, it's important to understand something about the term USB. It refers to both the shape of the port and to the speed of the data that can move over the port. Here are the two types of USB connections you are probably most familiar with. There's the rectangular one that's been around for 25 years. This is actually called USBA. Then there's the more modern USB C port which is smaller and has these rounded ends. Now both are called USB but to call them their proper names. One will be USBA and the other USB C. But that's not the only time you hear the term USB. You'll also hear it when it comes to the speed of the port. So for instance, you may hear something is USB
1:33 3 or USB 4. This refers to the protocol kind of like the language that the port speaks. But the practical part of that is speed. USB 4 is faster than USB 3. For instance, if you were transferring data to an external drive, a USB 4 drive would complete the transfer faster than a USB 3 drive. Now, these are the most common terms you'll hear, A and C and three and four, but there are many more. There's actually USBB, which is kind of a chunky looking square port. You'll see it commonly on the backs of printers. And speed-wise, too, the original USB is actually USB 1.0, but there were faster upgrades, 1.2, 2.0. Today, most USB 3 ports are actually USB 3.2 and they're
2:19 actually generations of that. So, gen one, gen two and all, but always the name or letter refers to the shape of the port, whereas the number refers to the protocol or speed used by the port. But it's important to know that speeds are backwards compatible. So, if you have a current Mac that says it has USB 4 ports, you can plug any previous generation of USB into it and your Mac will be able to handle it just fine. It'll just work at the speed of that older device. By the way, if you find these videos valuable, consider joining the more than 2,000 others that support MacMost at Patreon. You get exclusive content, course discounts, and more. You can read about it at macmo.com/patreon. What about newer
3:05 iMacs? Here's the back of a 2024 iMac. It has four ports on the back and there's no label. So, are these just USB ports? No. In fact, they're Thunderbolt ports. Apple will simply not label them if they're all Thunderbolt ports. Only if some are Thunderbolt and some are USB will it label the Thunderbolt ports as such. Here's another example. Here are the three Thunderbolt ports on a MacBook Pro. There's no label with them. All three of them are Thunderbolt. And here is a Mac Studio. On the back are four Thunderbolt ports, and you can see they are labeled with a little Thunderbolt above all four. On the front are two more USBC ports, but those don't have the label. They are in fact only USB
3:50 ports. You can't plug in Thunderbolt devices to those, only the four on the back. And in addition to that, if you look closely to the right of the power port there, you'll see two older USBA style ports. And these are also just USB. Now, you don't have to just rely on the symbols here. You can actually look at the tech specs on Apple's site for any of the Macs it sells. For instance, here's the 2024 iMac, and you can see here that the iMac comes in two different varieties, one with two ports and one with four ports, but all of them are Thunderbolt ports. But if we go to the tech specs for the 2023 iMac, the one with two label with Thunderbolt and two not, you could see it clearly shows that there are two Thunderbolt ports and
4:37 two USB 3 ports. So, back to that 2023 iMac. It's got two ports that are clearly labeled as Thunderbolt ports, and that's what they are. The two that aren't labeled, well, they're not Thunderbolt ports. They are just USB ports. So, what can you do with these ports? Well, with USB ports, you could plug in USB devices. That's simple and straightforward. Thunderbolt ports can do a lot more, though. You can plug in USB devices to Thunderbolt ports, but you could also plug in Thunderbolt devices. There are companies that make very fast drives and they work with Thunderbolt, not USB. You can also plug in display port cables. These are cables that will connect to displays. So, Thunderbolt ports can handle many different types of connections. Think of these as languages. It can speak USB,
5:23 Thunderbolt, and Display Port. In addition, with MacBooks, which have batteries, you can use the Thunderbolt port to actually provide power to your MacBook. Regular USB ports can also provide power but the other way out to a device, but the Thunderbolt ports on MacBooks can actually be used to power your Mac just like the Macsafe power port can. That's important to know if you happen to be traveling, say, and you forgot your Mac Safe adapter. You can just use one of the Thunderbolt ports to charge your Mac like you do with your iPhone. But notice that both Thunderbolt and USB ports use the USBC shape. So, this is a universal port shape. And this leads to a lot of confusion because if you see a port that looks like this, it
6:08 could be Thunderbolt or it could just be USB. So, what you really want to know is how do you use these ports on your Mac? You may have only Thunderbolt ports, but you may also have USB ports. So, let's look at this in terms of priorities. If you've got a Mac Mini or a Mac Studio, you want to connect a display first. That's the most important thing. And if you have a MacBook, you may want to connect a second display in addition to the one that's part of the MacBook itself. So priority one is displays. These get connected to Thunderbolt ports because Thunderbolt ports, unlike USB ports, can be used for display port. Most third party screens have a display port connection on the back. So you want to get a display port cable cuz that's the language that your Mac is using to
6:54 talk to the screen. On the one end, you want USBC because that's the shape of the port on your Mac. On the other end, you want to get something that matches your display. The choices are either display port or a mini display port. So, check to see which one your display has. Get a display port cable that has the proper connection on each end, and you connect that to a Thunderbolt port on your Mac to hook up the display. But some displays actually have a Thunderbolt port. And if it has that, then you definitely want to take advantage of that and just get a Thunderbolt cable. It would probably be USBC to USBC and would have to specify that it is a Thunderbolt cable. You can't just get a USBC cable. It has to say it's Thunderbolt compatible. So, you
7:41 would connect this Thunderbolt cable from Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt. And that often gets you an added advantage. For instance, on the Apple Studio display means that you can use the display as a USB hub. That's what those other USB ports are on the back. There's one Thunderbolt port. That's your input. So, that goes from the Thunderbolt port on your Mac to the Thunderbolt port on the Apple Studio Display. The other three ports there, they're just USB. And you can attach other devices like say hard drives to your display and then it will connect to your computer through the display. And there are other displays that will also allow Thunderbolt connectivity and give you additional USB ports like this. In addition to that, it also supplies power
8:27 to a MacBook. So, you could actually connect your MacBook up to an Apple Studio Display and then you'll not only get the three USB ports in the back of the Studio Display, but you'll also power the MacBook through it, so it'll charge the battery up while you're using the display. Now, there are some displays that have both display port and USB input. In this case, you could with these displays connect from Thunderbolt to display port and also from a USB port on your Mac to the USB input on the display and then it makes the display act as a hub. You can do this. It's completely optional. You can also just ignore those USB ports on the display if you wish. Now, your second priority is Thunderbolt devices. If you happen to
9:13 have a Thunderbolt only device or device that's faster if you connect it via Thunderbolt, like say a very fast external hard drive, then you'd want to use a Thunderbolt port for that. If you use a USB port, it either won't work or more likely it'll work, but just at USB speeds, not at Thunderbolt speeds. So after that, you've just got USB devices. It doesn't matter here whether you connect to USB or Thunderbolt ports. Naturally, if you only have Thunderbolt ports on your Mac, like the 2024 iMac, then you should connect to those Thunderbolt ports. They could be used for Thunderbolt or USB. But if it's only a USB device, use the USB port, not the Thunderbolt port. Leave Thunderbolt open for other things that require Thunderbolt or display port. The
10:00 exception may be a Mac like the Mac Studio that has USB ports on the front and Thunderbolt on the back and you really want to connect a USB device to the back of the Mac Studio. In that case, if you've got the Thunderbolt port, you can use it for USB. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with connecting a USB device to Thunderbolt. It's just that you want to give priority to Thunderbolt only devices if that's needed. I mentioned before about making sure you have a Thunderbolt cable to connect from your Mac to a Thunderbolt display. It's important to make sure you get the right cable if you want to connect Thunderbolt devices. It's not enough just to get a USBC to USBC cable. It has to say it's Thunderbolt compatible. And if you need Thunderbolt
10:45 4, you want to make sure it says it is Thunderbolt 4 compatible. Same for the newer Thunderbolt 5. A regular USBC to USBC cable is only going to work for USBC devices. It won't work for Thunderbolt devices, even though it looks the same. So, I do want to talk about one other kind of port as well, and that's an HDMI port. Some Macs have an HDMI port. For instance, a Mac Pro has one, and also there's the Mac Studios got an HDMI port. So, you may think, well, HDMI, that's for connecting screens, and you may have a screen that has HDMI on it. So, you may think that the best thing to do is connect HDMI to HDMI and use that for your display. But in fact, that's not usually the best way to do it. See, display port is
11:31 specifically for connecting computer displays. Typically, you'll get more options on your Mac, like more resolutions you can choose from, and you may get a higher quality image if you use display port. So, what you want to do when connecting a display is you want to use a Thunderbolt port with a display port cable. when connecting to a display port screen. If a display is Thunderbolt, then naturally you want to use that Thunderbolt port to connect to the display using a Thunderbolt cable. So, what's the HDMI for? Well, you would use HDMI if you're connecting your display that only had HDMI. Hopefully, you don't have a display like that, but one reason you might is if you're using a TV as a display or you just want to connect to a TV, say in your living room, that's not going to have display port. TVs will have HDMI. So then you've
12:19 got no choice but to use the HDMI port. Use an HDMI cable and connect your Mac to it. A very common reason to use HDMI is if you're using a projector or large screen in a classroom, meeting room or auditorium. And in that case, the projector probably only has HDMI and that's what that port really is for. There are other reasons to use it as well. For instance, if you're a video editor, you may have many displays and you may use the HDMI to connect to a TV to preview your video to see what looks like on a regular TV instead of a computer display while you're editing. But in general, to connect a Mac to a regular computer display, you use the Thunderbolt port, not the HDMI port. So, to sum it all up, when connecting a display to your Mac, use a Thunderbolt
13:05 port and either a display port or Thunderbolt cable. When connecting a Thunderbolt device, like a very fast hard drive, use the Thunderbolt port with a Thunderbolt cable. When using a USB device, you can use a USB port and a USB cable, but you can also use a Thunderbolt port and a USB cable. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for [Music] watching. If you like this video, click the thumbs up button below to let me know. I publish new tutorials each weekday. Hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out.
