Hiding Developer Tools in the Parallels Desktop GUI

Parallels Desktop Business and Pro editions include developer tools which are aimed at software developers using Parallels Desktop as their development platform. The tools are accessed by clicking the Develop menu on the virtual machine menu bar and then choosing one of the available options (e.g. Start SSH Session, Start Debugging Session, and others). If users in your organization are not using these tools, you can hide the Develop menu altogether. The reason you would want to do this, some of these features (if used accidentally) may start a debugging session or engage some other development-specific task that may temporarily disrupt a normal Parallels Desktop operation.

This option is a part of a virtual machine configuration and can be set using the Parallels graphical user interface as follows:

1. Open the virtual machine configuration dialog (click the gear icon or choose Actions > Configure).
2. In the dialog, click Options (at the top) and then click More Options in the left pane.
3. In the right pane, select or clear the Show developer tools option. This will show or hide the Develop menu on the virtual machine menu bar (you don't have to restart a virtual machine if it's running).

To modify this setting from the command line, execute the following command in Terminal:

prlctl set ID|Name --show-dev-tools on|off

where ID/Name is the GUID or name of a target virtual machine.

When mass deploying Parallels Desktop on Mac computers in your organization, you can configure the deployment package to apply this settings to all included virtual machines automatically. For details, see Configure Deployment Configuration Options.

Note: In Parallels Desktop prior to version 13, hiding or showing developer tools was a global option (not a virtual machine level option). If you are still using Parallels Desktop version 12 or older, the option to hide or show developer tools is located in Parallels Desktop Preferences. In these older versions of Parallels Desktop, you can also turn this option on or off from the command line by modifying the com.parallels.Parallels Desktop.plist file located in the ~/Library/Preferences folder. For example, to show developer tools, execute the following command: defaults write "com.parallels.Parallels Desktop" "Application preferences.Show Develop Menu" -bool yes (use "-bool no" to hide the tools).