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What You Need

You can install and use Parallels Desktop 17 on Mac computers with the Apple M1 chip or on Mac computers with an Intel processor.

Before installing Parallels Desktop 17, please make sure your Mac meets the following requirements:

 

Minimum

To run most apps such as Microsoft Office, accounting, trading, SAP, Matlab, and more.

Best performance

For graphics-intensive apps, high loads, and running multiple virtual machines.

Processor

Apple M1 chip, Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor

Apple M1 chip, 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 installation

Additional disk space for the guest operating system (at least 16GB is required for Windows 10).

SSD drive

Operating system
  • macOS Monterey 12 (when released)
  • macOS Big Sur 11.1 or later
  • macOS Catalina 10.15.7 or later
  • macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or later
  • macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or later
  • macOS Monterey 12 (when released)
  • macOS Big Sur 11.1 or later

DirectX 11 requires at least macOS Mojave 10.14, but works best on macOS 10.15 Catalina and later.

Graphics

Apple M1 chip, Intel, AMD Radeon, or NVIDIA

Apple M1 chip or AMD Radeon Pro graphics card

To identify your computer's processor, memory, and macOS version, choose Apple menu > About This Mac.

Internet connection is required for product activation, updates, and select features.

Once Parallels Desktop is installed, you need to create a virtual machine (it is a virtual computer that shares your Mac's resources, resides on the Mac and behaves as a standalone physical computer) and install the operating system you need into it. You can do one of the following:

  • Install any of the supported operating systems in your virtual machine. Please note that you will need this operating system installation media.
  • Download and install freely available operating systems such as Ubuntu, Fedora or other systems supported by Parallels Desktop.
  • Create a macOS virtual machine using the macOS recovery partition.
  • Create a Windows virtual machine that uses the Boot Camp partition as its hard disk.
  • Transfer a Windows computer to a virtual machine and use it on your Mac alongside macOS.
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