It’s not free, but it has been tested to ensure compatibility with a wide range of Windows apps.Īdvantage: Supports some popular apps and games. Crossover for MacĬrossOver is a version of Wine made by CodeWeavers. Like Virtual Box, Wine is free to download but you’ll need to do your own research to get the help and support you need.Īdvantage: Doesn't require a Windows license and works as a Windows app. However, it doesn’t run Windows itself, so you don’t need a Windows license to use or install Windows on it. So why include it here? Because it does the same thing as an emulator: allows you to run Windows apps on your Mac. The second thing to mention is that Wine is an acronym for 'Wine is not an emulator'. There are unofficial ‘forks’ of Wine that allow you to run 64-bit Windows apps on later macOS versions, but nothing official. Wine is a bit ancient. The official version of Wine won’t run on Catalina and newer as it’s not a 64-bit app. The first thing to say about Wine is that if you’re running a new macOS version, forget about it. If you’re comfortable with the manual setup and don’t need assistance then Virtual Box could be a good choice for you. What's more, it doesn't offer the kind of support or help during setup that you get with those apps. That means it's free to use for individuals but also, that it’s much less polished than Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. The latest version of Fusion supports Dark Mode and Sidecar, as well as the MacBook Pro Touch Bar.Īdvantage: You can run not just Windows, but also other operating systems. And the third option you have is to run individual Windows apps alongside Mac apps while keeping Windows itself hidden. Or you can run it in a window so that the whole Windows interface runs like a Mac app. You can run it full-screen so your Mac looks and feels like a Windows PC. VMWare Fusion doesn’t get updated as often as Parallels Desktop but it shares many of its features. It’s also available in several different editions which support a different number of users.Īdvantage: Works fast, no need to reboot.

Parallels updates every year so it runs smoothly on the latest macOS versions (even with Apple constant changes to support Apple Silicon-based Macs). Its main benefit is super easy setup and fast sharing of files and hardware resources like a printer between Mac and Windows. And like the other tools here, you can install not just Windows, but almost any OS you like. This is the other popular way to run Windows on a Mac. In Boot Camp, you don’t run Windows on top of macOS, so it uses less RAM and fewer processor cycles than other solutions. However, you need to reboot your Mac every time you want to switch between Mac and Windows.Īdvantage: It’s pre-installed on your Mac. Every Intel Mac ships with Boot Camp which allows you to partition your startup disk and install Windows.īoot Camp’s main advantage, other than cost, is speed. If you need a solution that doesn’t cost anything other than the license for Windows, this is it. But that’s a technical distinction we don’t need to worry about too much.

Software that allows you to install Windows is now more accurately referred to as virtualization software rather than emulation. Now that the Mac is based on Intel hardware (at least until the whole range moves to Apple Silicon), it’s much less of a challenge to run Windows. In those days, because of the Mac PowerPC hardware, running Windows was much more complicated than it is today. The software had to emulate the Intel hardware in order to install the software. The term emulation goes back to the days before the Mac started using Intel processors. Thankfully, there are tools that can help you run Windows on Mac and I'm about to cover the best of them in this article. Some people need Windows for gaming, some for the specialized apps exclusively designed for Windows PC. You can keep a Windows PC handy or you can run Windows on your Mac using a tool, like BootCamp. And to do that, you have a couple of choices. No matter how much you love your Mac, there are times when we have to run Windows. But to help you do it all by yourself, we’ve gathered our best ideas and solutions below.įeatures described in this article refer to the MacPaw site version of CleanMyMac X. So here's a tip for you: Download CleanMyMac to quickly solve some of the issues mentioned in this article.

Light windows emulator mac