Parallels Desktop 18 for Mac system requirements:
| Minimum To run most applications such as Microsoft Office, accounting, trading, SAP, Matlab, and more |
Best Performance For graphics-intensive applications, high loads and running multiple virtual machines |
|
| Processor | Apple M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M1 Ultra, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 chips, Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor | Apple M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M1 Ultra, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 chips, Intel Core i5, Core i7, Core i9 or Xeon processor |
| Memory | 4 GB of RAM | 16 GB of RAM or more |
| Storage |
600 MB for Parallels Desktop application installation Additional disk space for the guest operating system (at least 16 GB is required for Windows 11)
|
SSD drive |
| Graphics | Apple M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M1 Ultra, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 chips Intel, AMD Radeon, or NVIDIA graphics cards |
Apple M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M1 Ultra, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 chips AMD Radeon Pro graphics card |
| Operating System |
macOS Ventura 13.0 |
macOS Ventura 13.0 macOS Monterey 12.4 or newer macOS Big Sur 11.6.7 or newer |
Internet connection is required for product activation, updates, and select features.
Supported Guest Operating Systems (Mac with Apple M-series chip)
Only ARM versions of operating systems are supported.
- Windows 11 (recommended)
- Ubuntu Linux 22.04, 21.10, 21.04, 20.10, 20.04
- Fedora Workstation 36, 35, 34, 33-1.2
- Debian GNU/Linux 11, 10
- Kali Linux 2022.2, 2022.1, 2021.3
- macOS Monterey 12 (in-app download)
- macOS Ventura 13
Supported Guest Operating Systems (Mac with Intel processor):
Only x86 versions of operating systems are supported.
- Windows 11 (recommended)
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows Server 2022
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows 7 (SP0-SP1)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Vista Home, Business, Ultimate and Enterprise (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows XP (SP0-SP3)
- Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Windows 2000 Server SP4
- Boot2Docker
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9, 8 and 7
- CentOS Linux 9 Stream, 8, 7
- Fedora Linux 36, 35, 34, 33
- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, 21.10, 21.04, 20.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS
- Debian GNU/Linux 11, 10
- Suse Linux Enterprise 15
- OpenSUSE Linux 15.2, 15.1, 15
- Linux Mint 20, 19
- Kali 2022.2, 2022.1, 2020.2, 2019, 2018
- Elementary OS 6, 5
- Manjaro 21, 19, 18
- Mageia 8, 7
- Gentoo Linux **
- Solaris 11, 10 **
- openBSD 6 **
- FreeBSD 12, 11 **
- openVZ 7
- eComStation 2, 1.2 **
- ReactOS 0.4 **
- Android OS*
- macOS Ventura 13.0 ***
- macOS Monterey 12.0
- macOS Big Sur 11.0
- macOS Catalina 10.15
- macOS Mojave 10.14.x
- macOS High Sierra 10.13.x
- macOS Sierra 10.12.x
- OS X El Capitan 10.11.x
- OS X Yosemite 10.10.x
- OS X Mavericks 10.9.x
- OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.x
- OS X Lion 10.7.x
- OS X Lion Server 10.7.x
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server 10.6.x
- Mac OS X Leopard Server 10.5.x
- and many more...
* - Only the version downloaded with help of the Installation Assistant with Parallels Desktop.
** - Parallels Tools are not available for this operating system.
*** - please note that you can install only the versions of macOS virtual machines (VMs) that your host supports. E.g., macOS Ventura VM won't work on the legacy Mac that isn't compatible with macOS Ventura 13.
Note: Parallels Desktop for Mac emulates PC hardware, so operating systems that are not present in this list can work as well. You can download the Parallels Desktop trial and install an operating system of your choice. If it doesn't work and you believe it should be supported, let us know at Parallels Forum.
Parallels Tools for Linux require X Window System version 1.15-1.20 and Linux Kernel version 2.6.29-5.18 RC1.
Moving Your PC?
You can move your files from Windows PC using Apple Migration Assistant.
To move your Windows apps, you can use the Parallels Transporter feature.
Note: Parallels Transporter is not available for Mac with Apple M-series chips.
PC system requirements to move your PC to your Intel Mac (using Parallels Transporter Agent):
- 700 MHz (or higher) x86 or x64 processor (Intel or AMD)
- 256 MB of RAM
- 50 MB of available hard disk space for installation of Parallels Transporter Agent
- Ethernet or WiFi network adapter for migrating over network
- External USB drive for migrating via external disk
- Supported Windows: Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000 *
* - To migrate Windows Vista or older, Transporter Agent from Parallels Desktop 13 should be used.
Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac system requirements:
System requirements for Parallels Desktop 17 can be found in the User's Guide.
Was this article helpful?
Tell us how we can improve it.