Mac – Advice to use a Mac Mini without display, but using an iPad (sidecar / screen sharing / remote desktop?)

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I'm considering buying an iMac mini for storage (to archive my Photo library, so not like a server but to log in incidentally and make backups). Because I will not use it often, I thought of the following procedure to use the iPad as the display for the Mac.

  1. Boot the Mac mini without display.
  2. Connect to the Mac with Screen Sharing (with a different iPad/iPhone/Mac).
  3. With the VNC viewer, connect the iPad I want to use with sidecar to the Mac.
  4. Use the Mac with sidecar.

What are your thoughts on this setup?
One of the things I don't know for sure is if I can directly connect and log in to the Mac mini with VNC directly after booting.

All advice on how to do this is very welcome, also if you have different suggestions for connecting the iPad to the Mac mini.

Best Answer

What you want to do is entirely possible (in fact, it's pretty close to what I do). There are a few things to be aware of.

  1. For initial set up you will need to connect your MacMini to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Once you've set it up you can hide it away (provided that you have a good flow of air for cooling) and connect from your iPad.

  2. Due to some oddity in macOS or in the Mac Mini yourself, you won't get full performance in this configuration. To get full performance you will need to connect a dongle to your Mac's monitor port to make it think that it has a monitor connected. Weird, no? But it works. Something like this. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=CompuLab+Display+Emulator&ref=nb_sb_noss

Enjoy.

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