I have two MacBook Pros: a 2011 17 inch and a 2017 15 inch; both have the latest macOS installed.
Does anyone know if it is possible to make the 15" MBP use the 17" MBP as an external monitor?
MacBook – Make one MacBook Pro use the screen of another MacBook Pro
displaydual-screenmacbook proscreenscreen-sharing
Related Solutions
That is a proprietary interface and there is not going to be a ready made solution to get it to adapt to being used as a stand alone screen separated from a Mac Book Pro.
Your best bet would be to sell the MacBook Pro as parts on eBay or something and just buy an external LCD or put the cash towards your next computer.
Its going to be an engineering effort as referenced in a similar question Can my Macbook Pro's display receive inputs from other sources?. Here is the answer provided by "Fake Name":
Yes, but it's not worth it.
You would have to take the laptop apart, design and engineer a custom converter to drive the LCD interface (internally, it's going to use LVDS to handle the interface between the laptop's motherboard and the screen), and power it somehow. It also would probably render the macbook from which you removed the screen unusable as a laptop.
It would take a few hundred hours of engineering time, and cost a lot in prototypes.
You are better off just buying a separate LCD.
You can not use your MacBook Pro as a second monitor for your iMac without additional software.
ScreenRecycler claims to allow you to expand your desktop across multiple computers.
As an alternative approach, Synergy (previously open source at synergy-foss.org) claims to lets you combine multiple computers into one. It will let you use both computers from a single keyboard and mouse.
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Best Answer
You can't physically connect the display of another MacBook (or any other laptop for that matter) to use it as an external monitor.
However, there is an app called AirDisplay that will turn any display into an external monitor via WiFi (or wired network if you prefer).
It's a pretty good piece of kit, but (IMO) it's better to just purchase an external monitor that meets your needs; it's much more stable, reliable, and better performing.