Parallels Desktop for Mac App Store Edition 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 M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra chips Intel Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor |
Apple M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra chips Intel Core i5, Core i7, Core i9 or Xeon processor |
| 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 M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra chips Intel, AMD Radeon, or NVIDIA graphics cards |
Apple M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra chips AMD Radeon Pro graphics card |
| Operating System | macOS Sonoma 14.0 or newer macOS Ventura 13.4 or newer macOS Monterey 12.6 or newer macOS Big Sur 11.7 or newer[1] macOS Catalina 10.15.7 or newer[1] macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or newer[1] |
macOS Sonoma 14.0 or newer macOS Ventura 13.4 or newer macOS Monterey 12.6 or newer |
Internet connection is required for product activation, updates, and select features.
[1] – the marked OS version is not supported by Parallels Desktop 1.9, and the product installer will set up an earlier product version; support of guest operating systems can be limited. It is recommended to update macOS if possible.
Supported Systems on Mac with Apple silicon
The following operating systems (ARM-based only) are supported for running in a virtual machine.
- Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise editions (recommended)
- Ubuntu Linux 23.04, 22.04, 21.10, 21.04, 20.10, 20.04
- Fedora Workstation 38, 37, 36, 35, 34, 33-1.2
- Debian GNU/Linux 12, 11, 10
- Kali Linux 2023.1, 2022.2, 2022.1, 2021.3
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9
- macOS Monterey 12 (in-app download)
- macOS Ventura 13 (in-app download)
- macOS Sonoma 14 (in-app download)
Supported Systems on Mac with Intel processor
Only x86 versions of operating systems are supported.
- Windows 11 (recommended)
- Windows 10*
- Windows Server 2022
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Boot2Docker
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9, 8 and 7
- CentOS Linux 9 Stream, 8, 7
- Fedora Linux 38, 37
- Ubuntu Linux 23.04, 22.04 LTS, 21.10, 21.04, 20.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS
- Debian GNU/Linux 12, 11, 10
- Suse Linux Enterprise 15
- OpenSUSE Linux 15.5, 15.4
- Linux Mint 20
- Kali Linux 2023.1, 2022.2, 2022.1, 2020.2, 2019, 2018
- Elementary OS 7
- Manjaro 22, 21
- Mageia 8, 7
- Gentoo Linux **
- Solaris 11, 10 **
- openBSD 6 **
- FreeBSD 12, 11 **
- openVZ 7
- eComStation 2, 1.2 **
- ReactOS 0.4 **
- Android OS (in-app download only)*
- macOS Sonoma 14.0 ***
- 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 64-bit version is supported.
** - Parallels Tools are not available for this operating system.
*** - Parallels Desktop 1.9 supports only macOS virtual machines created on a Mac computer that supports the operating system as a host OS. Feel free to give it a try if you need such a virtual machine, though please note that it might not work.
Note: To run legacy Windows OS versions (2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1), download and use Parallels Desktop version 18.3.0 and activate it with your Parallels Desktop App Store Edition key. Learn more in KB 129252.
Note: Parallels Desktop for Mac emulates PC hardware, so operating systems that are not present in this list can work as well. You can start 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. To learn more about the limitations of running Windows 11 in Parallels Desktop, please visit KB 129497.
For information on Parallels Tools for Linux support in Parallels Desktop App Store Edition, please refer to KB 129963.
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