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Can I run a macOS VM on a new M4 Mac?

  • 1.  Can I run a macOS VM on a new M4 Mac?

    Posted Mar 17, 2025 04:36 PM

    @Rene van der Linden asked a question in a comment to the Companion Guide that I thought should be posted here.

    Hi, just new here.
    I have an M4 and Fusion 13.6.x. I'll want to create a MacOS VM that runs like my MacBook Pro 2016 (i7). 2 questions:
    1] Which OS should I use for this?
    2] How to install ( I have an ISO)?

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    Reading other related topics, it seems that this is not yet possible (without work arounds). Will this be made available in the future?

    I thought I'd answer it here so that it gets a bit more visibility.

    The short answer is that Fusion does not support running macOS as VM on M-series (Apple Silicon Macs). There is a workaround i-- you can use UTM to virtualize macOS Monterey or later (with some functionality restrictions imposed by Apple). See the Companion Guide for a more in-depth explanation.

    Will we ever see Fusion run macOS VMs on M-series Macs? Broadcom says little about upcoming new features for their products, but has hinted that they might be working on it. No time frames have been announced. I would not expect, though, that you can run macOS releases that run on Intel Macs (e.g. Big Sur and earlier). Fusion doesn't and likely won't provide the full-chip emulation of an Intel processor that would be required to run operating systems compile for Intel chips  (and Intel CPU chip emulation does not perform very well). 



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    - Paul (technogeezer)
    vExpert 2025
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