By Apple’s MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are remarkable laptops, but they don’t make for the best desktop alternatives right out of the box. Like Henry Ford’s Model T, which gave you a choice of colors (so long as you chose black), modern MacBook Airs give you your choice of ports, so long as they are USB-C ports. MacBook Pros offer some extra options—an HDMI port and an SD card reader—but they’re still limited by desktop computer standards.
So, if you don’t want to rely on a whole host of USB-C adapters or dongles back at your desk, a docking station can be your best solution short of buying a desktop Mac. This guide to the top MacBook docking stations for your Apple laptop will help you find the desktop peripheral setup that’s right for you.
You can trust our recommendations, which adhere to our rigorous editorial standards and are based on our extensive knowledge of the market and years of experience testing Macs. (For a higher-level overview of docking-station options, check out our deep-dive guide to how to pick a laptop docking station.)
Anker 675 USB-C Docking Station
We have a confession to make: We once used a stack of books as a monitor stand. You can do a lot better today with the Anker 675 USB-C Docking Station, an aluminum alloy display stand (its legs are plastic) that’s also a 12-in-1 connection hub.
Besides the 100-watt USB-C connection to your laptop, the nonskid stand provides five 10Gbps USB ports (two Type-C and three Type-A); SD and microSD flash card slots; a 3.5mm audio jack; a Gigabit Ethernet port; and an HDMI port for a 4K/60Hz monitor.
Besides improving your posture by elevating your display, the stand offers built-in cable management to reduce desk clutter. It’s also a Qi wireless charging station that delivers up to 10 watts to a Samsung smartphone or 7.5 watts to an iPhone.
Ugreen Revodok Max 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station
Thirteen might be your lucky number with the Ugreen Revodok Max 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station. The device’s rear panel contains a 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 connection for your MacBook; a Gigabit Ethernet port; two 5Gbps USB 3.0 Type-A ports; and three ports capable of driving an 8K monitor at 30Hz—one DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.1, and one Thunderbolt 4. (M1, M2, and M3 Mac Books can use a single external monitor, while laptops with Pro or Max chips can drive two via Thunderbolt and either HDMI or DisplayPort, or three monitors if the last two are mirrored.)
Up front, you’ll find two 10Gbps USB-C 3.2 ports, one with power delivery; a 10Gbps USB-A 3.2 port; an audio port; and SD and microSD (TF) card slots. The Revodok Max provides up to 60 watts of charging to the host.
Baseus Joystar 7 in 1 USB-C Hub
If you just want to connect a couple of non-Thunderbolt or non-USB-C peripherals to your MacBook without spending a bundle, Baseus hopes you’ll check out the Joystar 7 in 1 USB-C Hub. This economy dock provides three 5Gbps USB 3.0 Type-A ports, one USB-C port with 100 watts of power delivery, one SD card slot, and one HDMI port capable of driving up to a 4K monitor at 60Hz. It measures 4.5 by 1.7 by 0.63 inches and weighs just 2.7 ounces.
J5Create M.2 NVMe USB-C Gen 2 Docking Station
Its 10Gbps USB-C interface isn’t as fast as a laptop’s internal PCI Express connection, but J5Create’s model JCD552 M.2 NVMe USB-C Gen 2 Docking Station is a unique way to expand your MacBook’s storage:
The 1-by-12.5-by-3.1-inch gray and black aluminum dock has a compartment for an NVMe or SATA M.2 solid-state drive (up to 80mm long/Type 2280; not included). It connects to your laptop using two USB-C cables and offers 100 watts of Power Delivery pass-through.
The docking station has 4K DisplayPort and HDMI video outputs, a gigabit Ethernet port, SD and microSD card slots, and three USB Type-A ports (one 5Gbps and two 10Gbps) in addition to the M.2 SSD slot. A security cable lock slot keeps it from walking away from your desk.
Kensington SD5900T EQ Thunderbolt 4 Quad 4K 40Gbps Dock with DisplayLink Technology
Kensington’s latest dock has a blue tint that sets it apart. If you’re more interested in connectivity than color, the SD5900T EQ Thunderbolt 4 Quad 4K Dock with Display Link Technology offers a dizzying array of ports, including two Thunderbolt 4 downstream ports and one DisplayPort for plug-and-play video plus two HDMI/DP options with Display Link technology.
That means quad 4K/60Hz displays with M1, M2, and M3 Pro and Max chipsets (or any of the M4 chipsets), or triple 4K/60Hz panels with M1 and M2 base chipsets.
The dock’s 16-in-1 design also includes 10Gbps USB-A and USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two 5Gbps USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, one DisplayPort, an audio jack, a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, and SD and microSD card slots. Cased in 100% recycled aluminum, the SD5900T offers 96-watt charging, and its compact footprint on your desk can be reduced to zero with an optional mounting bracket.
OWC Thunderbolt Pro Dock
When you’re working with gargantuan video files, 1Gbps or even 2.5Gbps Ethernet might keep you waiting. Not so the 10Gbps Ethernet connection of OWC’s Thunderbolt Pro Dock, which also packs CF express and SD card readers, two Thunderbolt ports, a 10Gbps USB-C port, and three 10Gbps USB-A ports.
Supporting dual 4K displays or one 8K display, the Pro Dock lets you daisy-chain up to five Thunderbolt devices and provides 85 watts of charging power. It measures 1.4 by 4.3 by 8.3 inches and weighs 1.4 pounds.
Satechi Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station with Display Link
Satechi boasts that its Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station with DisplayLink resolves the single-external-monitor limitation of M1 and M2 MacBooks, letting you connect two displays via HDMI DisplayLink software.
The M3 MacBook Air teams with the device to support two 4K/60Hz screens in clamshell mode, allowing a total of four external displays.
The docking station provides one upstream and three downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports (the latter supporting up to 6K/60Hz on Mac and 8K/30Hz on Windows), two HDMI 2.0 ports, two 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, an Ethernet port, an SD card slot, and an audio jack. It measures 8.4 by 3.8 by 0.72 inches and weighs 17.3 ounces.
Pluggable Thunderbolt 4 & USB4 HDMI Docking Station with 96W Charging
Plugable sells a variety of USB-C docks, but its newest desk accessory raises the ante with Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. The Thunderbolt 4 & USB4 HDMI Docking Station (model TBT4-UDX1) has three 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 ports—one for your laptop and two for peripherals—plus three 10Gbps USB-A ports, a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, an HDMI 2.0 monitor port, a fourth front-mounted USB-A port with device charging, an SD card slot, and an audio jack.
Capable of charging an M1, M2, or M3 MacBook Pro from 0% to 50% in half an hour (though the 96 watts for the host drops to 81 watts with one Thunderbolt peripheral connected and 66 watts with two), the Pluggable dock can drive two 4K/60Hz monitors through HDMI and Thunderbolt.
(It comes with a USB-C-to-HDMI adapter.) The dual display feature is only available on systems with M2 or M3 Pro or Max processors. The station measures 1.2 by 7.9 by 3 inches and weighs a pound.
VisionTek VT7400 Triple Display 4K USB-C Docking Station
Talk about making the most of a USB-C port: VisioTek’s VT7400 docking station allows you to connect up to three 4K displays and up to seven accessories with a little black box (1.2 by 8.8 by 3.6 inches).
Fully compatible with M1 Mac Books, the device provides up to 100 watts of USB-C power delivery and four front-mounted 10Gbps USB ports (two Type-A and two Type-C) plus an audio jack.
Around back, you’ll find a Gigabit Ethernet port, two more USB-A ports, two DisplayLink DisplayPort connectors, and three HDMI ports (two DisplayLink and one DP Alt Mode).
This allows for a dizzying array of external monitor connections; you’ll want to check VisionTek’s handy chart on page 3 of this PDF file, which breaks down your options by connection type, operating system (it works with Windows, too), and display resolution. Finally, IT managers will like the VT7400’s support for Wake-on-LAN and PXE Boot technologies.
