A divertor magnetic configuration is an alternative method of obtaining interchange mode stability in the central cell of the GAMMA10 tandem mirror (Cho et al 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett.94 085002). Various divertor configurations are investigated in the central cell of GAMMA10 to determine the best configuration. The equilibrium in the divertor configuration is calculated using the generalized Grad–Shafranov equation with anisotropic plasma pressure to estimate how high a plasma pressure is sustained by the magnetic divertor.