How to get monitor EDID in OS X?

Question

I'm looking to pull the EDID information in OS X / macOS?

It looks like it's stored in the IORegistry. Is there a way to access it with the current monomac libraries? Can I do it with standard interop or do I need to write a custom shim?

It looks like the ioreg command line can also get to IODisplay EDID attribute, but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get an abbreviated list of devices.

Answer 1

Sadly, there's no out-of-the box solution.

First, what you want to do is download the "edid-decode" program. Unfortunately, it's not available via homebrew so you'll have to download it from https://git.linuxtv.org/edid-decode.git/ or https://github.com/timvideos/edid-decode. Luckily, it's just a single .c file, so you only need to type "make". (Don't do "make install" without editing the bindir and mandir in the Makefile). Put the resulting binary in your path.

Then execute ioreg -lw0 -r -c "IODisplayConnect" -d 2 | grep IODisplayEDID (kudos to @Steven) to get the EDID data in hex form for all of your monitors.

Select one of your outputs, copy the hex string to the clipboard, and then execute pbpaste | edid-decode

Answer 2

If you want to check EDID text, try

ioreg -lw0 -r -c "IODisplayConnect" -n "display0" -d 2 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

Answer 3

for theedid in $(ioreg -lw0 -r -c "IODisplayConnect" -d 2 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed -E "/^.*<(.*)>/s//\1/"); do edid-decode <<< $theedid; done

anything that looks like edid:

for theedid in $(ioreg -lw0 | grep '<00ffffffffffff' | sed -E "/^.*<(.*)>/s//\1/"); do edid-decode <<< $theedid; done

or:

ioreg -lrw0 -c "IODisplayConnect" -d2 | sed -nE '/^.*"IODisplayEDID" = <(.*)>/s//edid-decode <<< \1/p'

Answer 4

sudo ioreg -l | grep IODisplayEDID

Answer 5

Building on @KTane's answer, that snippet didn't show anything, but this does (macOS Monterey 12.3 on a Mac Studio):

ioreg -l | grep EDID
    | |   |   |   "DisplayAttributes" = {"SupportsSuspend"=No,"MaximumRefreshRate"=144,"SupportsActiveOff"=No,"PortID"=32,"ProductAttributes"={"ManufacturerID"="SAM","YearOfManufacture"=2018,"SerialNumber"=810889805,"ProductName"="C27JG5x","AlphanumericSerialNumber"="HTOKC02346","LegacyManufacturerID"=19501,"ProductID"=3928,"WeekOfManufacture"=51},"MaxVerticalImageSize"=34,"MaxHorizontalImageSize"=60,"HasHDMILegacyEDID"=No,"Chromaticity"={"Red"={"X"=44352,"Y"=20736},"Green"={"X"=18048,"Y"=43328},"Blue"={"X"=9984,"Y"=4032}},"DefaultColorSpaceIsSRGB"=No,"NativeFormatHorizontalPixels"=2560,"DefaultWhitePoint"={"X"=20544,"Y"=21568,"Gamma"=144179},"SupportsVariableRefreshRate"=No,"AspectRatio"=15,"MinimumRefreshRate"=50,"WhitePoints"=({"X"=20544,"Y"=21568,"Gamma"=144179}),"PreciseAspectRatio"=115652,"ContinuousFrequencySupport"="None","SupportsStandby"=Yes,"NativeFormatVerticalPixels"=1440}

    | |   |   |   "EDID UUID" = "4C2D580F-0000-0000-331C-0104A53C2278"

    | |   |   |   "DisplayAttributes" = {"SupportsSuspend"=No,"MaximumRefreshRate"=144,"SupportsActiveOff"=No,"PortID"=48,"ProductAttributes"={"ManufacturerID"="SAM","YearOfManufacture"=2018,"SerialNumber"=810889805,"ProductName"="C27JG5x","AlphanumericSerialNumber"="HTOKC02337","LegacyManufacturerID"=19501,"ProductID"=3928,"WeekOfManufacture"=51},"MaxVerticalImageSize"=34,"MaxHorizontalImageSize"=60,"HasHDMILegacyEDID"=No,"Chromaticity"={"Red"={"X"=44352,"Y"=20736},"Green"={"X"=18048,"Y"=43328},"Blue"={"X"=9984,"Y"=4032}},"DefaultColorSpaceIsSRGB"=No,"NativeFormatHorizontalPixels"=2560,"DefaultWhitePoint"={"X"=20544,"Y"=21568,"Gamma"=144179},"SupportsVariableRefreshRate"=No,"AspectRatio"=15,"MinimumRefreshRate"=50,"WhitePoints"=({"X"=20544,"Y"=21568,"Gamma"=144179}),"PreciseAspectRatio"=115652,"ContinuousFrequencySupport"="None","SupportsStandby"=Yes,"NativeFormatVerticalPixels"=1440}

    | |   |   |   "EDID UUID" = "4C2D580F-0000-0000-331C-0104A53C2278"

Can you spot the problem? Yes, both my monitors have the same serial number and UUID. Samsung needs a slap...