Parallels Desktop is a Mac app which allows you to install and run Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Google Chrome, Linux, Unix, Android, macOS Server on your Mac. To add Windows, Linux, or another operating system to your Mac, Parallels Desktop creates a virtual machine (VM) inside your Mac. You can then install other OS in the virtual machine, just as you would install any operating system on a regular computer. You can download Windows OS images from Microsoft website. Other free operating systems, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, or other Linux systems, can be directly downloaded and installed from Parallels Desktop.
Parallels Desktop system requirements
Hardware
- A Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor
- Minimum 4 GB of memory, 8 GB is recommended
- 600 MB of disk space on the boot volume (Macintosh HD) for Parallels Desktop application installation
- Additional disk space for virtual machines (varies on operating system and applications installed, e.g. at least 16GB is required for Windows 10)
- SSD drive is recommended for better performance
- Internet connection for product activation and select features
Software
- macOS Mojave 10.14
- macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or later
- macOS Sierra 10.12.6 or later
- OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 or later
Guest Operating Systems
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows 7 (SP0-SP1)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Vista Home, Business, Ultimate, Enterprise (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows XP (SP0-SP3)
- Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Windows 2000 Server SP4
- MS-DOS 6.22 **
- Boot2Docker
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7, 6, 5
- CentOS Linux 7, 6, 5
- Fedora Linux 28, 27, 26
- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 17.10, 16.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS, 12.04 LTS
- Debian GNU/Linux 9.4, 9, 8, 7
- Suse Linux Enterprise 12 SP3, 11 SP3, 11 SP2
- OpenSUSE Linux 15, 42.3, 13.2, 13.1, 12.3
- Linux Mint 19, 18, 17
- Kali 2018.2, 2018.1, 2
- Elementary 0.4
- Manjaro 17
- Mageia 6, 5, 4, 3
- Gentoo Linux **
- Solaris 11.3, 11, 10 **
- openBSD 6 **
- FreeBSD 11.1, 10, 10, 9, 8 **
- openVZ 7
- eComStation 2, 1.2 **
- ReactOS 0.4 **
- Android OS*
- 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
- * — Only the one downloaded with help of Installation Assistant.
** — Parallels tools are not available for this operating system.
Download & Availability
If you want to find more features, download free trial, compare versions, or purchase, visit its home page here.