When you start watching a streaming service like apple TV or similar, the next thing you want to know is how to watch it on your laptop. With apple TV and macbooks, you need authorize your macbook first for apple TV.
This article will show you how to authorize Macbook for apple TV so you can start using the service on your laptop as well.
Too Long Didn’t Read Version
- Open your apple TV app
- In the menu bar click Account
- Click Authorizations
- Click Authorize this computer
- Enter your apple ID and password
If you want to get the full picture and instructions keep reading below
How to authorize Macbook for apple TV
Below are more detailed instructions for authorizing your Macnook to show apple TV
1. The first thing you want to do is lunch your apple TV app on your Macbook
2. Now enter your apple ID and password
3. Now from the menu bar, click Account and Sign in
4. Again now you need to enter your apple ID and password
Important note: Your Mac MUST run MacOS 10.15 Catalina or a newer version to be able to run the apple TV app.
When you authorize your Macbook you will see and have access to all your past purchases and orders including the ones you made on iTunes.
Please note though you need to both sign in and authorize your Mac to have access to all the content by the app. Doing just one of these will NOT give you the full access. Either only signing in and not authorizing or just authorizing and not signing in will not do the trick here. Do both.
There’s a limit on how many devices you can authorize, and that limit is set to 5. However you can always deauthorize if you wish to change one of the devices and you already reached your limit. We will explain below how to deauthorize device.
Will apple TV work on laptops running with Windows?
Unfortunately, NO. apple TV will not work on laptops or devices running Windows. This is not really surprising given the fact that most apple apps require an apple device to run.
However, if you really want to run apple TV on a Windows device, there are workarounds around that limitations that you can use.
One of the solutions is simply accessing apple TV+ on a web browser, in this way it will obviously work on any device, but you will only get limited options on the browser compared to the app, more specifically, you won’t have access to past history and orders this way.
How to deauthorize your Macbook from apple TV
The process of deauthorizing a Macbook is similar to authorizing one, simply follow the steps below:
- Open the apple TV app on your Macbook
- Make sure you are signed in, and click on Account in the Menu bar
- Now click Authorizations and choose to authorize or deauthorize
- Sign in with your apple ID and password
- Click Deauthorize
How to see how many Macbooks are already authorized on apple TV
If you want to add another Macbook to apple TV authorizations but you’re not sure how many you already have on file ( remember the limit is 5 at the same time ). You can follow these steps to check:
- Lunch your apple TV app
- Click on Account from the Menu bar
- Click on Account Settings
- Sign in with your apple ID and password
- On your Account Information page, you can see in the middle of the page look for the item named ” Computer Authorizations ” and see how many are already authorized
If you need to deauthorize a computer you don’t have access too anymore, you will need to click the ” deauthorize all and then authorize computers one by one again.
NOTE: You can only deauthorize all once a year
Conclusion
We hope that if you read this far you now know how to authorize Macbook for apple TV and maybe a little bit more than that actually. apple TV is a great service and you should be able to enjoy it from across your different devices.
Frequently Asked Questions about authorizing Mac for apple TV
Yes, you can do that. You can either just set up apple TV with your iPhone, then hold the iPhone next to your apple TV and follow the on screen instructions.
This can happen for several reasons. One of them is to verify your apple ID is protected with two factor authorization. If you enable this feature, it will reduce the times it asked for your apple ID and also better protect your account.
YES, the password is the same as your apple ID password.
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