Apple’s latest version of macOS, 10.15 Catalina, looks a lot like earlier versions of the operating system, but looks very different under the hood. The biggest change is that Apple has ripped up all the code that, in previous versions, allowed older 32-bit applications to run in Apple’s 64-bit operating system. Apple warned us years ago that this change was coming, and there is no doubt that an all-64-bit operating system like Catalina is more efficient than an operating system that runs 32-bit code and 64 bit. Yet for many users, Catalina has been blocking the apps they have been relying on for years. Here we show you how to run 32-bit applications on an operating system that is not designed for them.
Before switching to Catalina, find out if you are using 32-bit applications that you cannot do without. The easiest way to do this is to click the Apple icon in the upper left, then click About This Mac, then System Report, and scroll down to Software / Applications. It will take a while for your Mac to gather information about your applications, and then display a list of all the applications on your machine. Find the column titled “64 bit (Intel)” and click on the column header. All of your 64-bit applications will display Yes in this column. All 32-bit applications will display a number. You may be surprised how many 32-bit apps you have. Study this list, and if you find the 32-bit apps you need, you’ll need to find a 64-bit update or replacement – or you can implement the workarounds below.
The 32-bit applications that you find on your machine are generally of two types: older Mac applications that have been abandoned by their developers (or that developers are slow to update) and applications based on the Wine software project which allows Mac and Linux computers to run Windows software. ((Some wine means “Wine is not an emulator”, but, in fact, it emulates Windows functionality so that Mac and Linux boxes can run some, but not all, Windows applications.)
If you need to run a 32-bit application, Apple informally recommends either keeping an old Mac on hand running a pre-Catalina version of the operating system, or partitioning your current Mac so that it can boot with a macOS plus former. version as well as Catalina. Both methods work, but both seem inconvenient and time consuming. There are, however, better alternatives.
The simplest method is as follows (but keep in mind that it costs money): Buy a copy of Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion if you don’t already have one. These programs are primarily designed to run Windows on a Mac, but you can also use them to create a virtual machine that runs macOS in a window on your Mac desktop. Parallels is the easiest to use, but VMware Fusion is not far behind.
The steps are different depending on whether you are still using macOS Mojave or have already upgraded to Catalina. Let’s start with the steps to follow if you are still using Mojave. Each step corresponds to a slideshow screen.
1. Launch Parallels Desktop
From the File menu, choose New … to open the Installation Wizard panel. In the Free Systems section, scroll right and click Install macOS 10.14.6 Using the Recovery Partition. (It may display a different version number on your system.) If you have upgraded to Mojave from an earlier version of the operating system, you may see options for installing that earlier version. Choose the version that you feel most comfortable with.
2. Create a new virtual machine
The next page of the wizard is titled macOS 10.14.6. Click on the Install button. Parallels launches the macOS installer and creates a new virtual machine. When finished, you will see a screen asking you which language to use to interact with your virtual Mac. Choose your preferred language and continue.
3. Prepare the Installation of macOS Mojave
The macOS recovery environment now opens on the virtual machine. (This is the screen that each Mac displays when you hold Cmd-R at startup.) From the macOS Utilities menu, click Reinstall macOS. The next screen will offer to install macOS Mojave. Click continue. On the license agreement screen, click Accept, and then click the Accept button on the context menu.
4. Install macOS Mojave on the virtual disk
Do not be terrified by the following screen, which offers to install Mojave on a hard drive called Macintosh HD. It’s not your Mac’s hard drive, but a virtual hard drive in the virtual machine created by Parallels. Click Macintosh HD, then click Continue. Now wait for Mojave to install on the virtual disk. It can take more than half an hour.
5. Configure macOS Mojave
The Virtual Mojave will display the same configuration screens that the Mac normally displays when you install an operating system.
6. Finish installing macOS Mojave
Once the installation is complete, you will see the default Mojave desktop. In the main menu of your current Mac (and not in the top menu of the virtual machine), choose Actions, then Install Parallels Tools.
7. Install Parallels tools
Follow the prompts to install Parallels Tools on your virtual Mojave machine, then restart the virtual machine.
8. Transfer your 32-bit applications
Drag your 32-bit applications from your real Mac to the Mojave virtual system. Double-click it to run them. If you are using Mojave and not an earlier version, you will see a familiar pop-up warning that your 32-bit is not optimized for macOS and will need to be updated. Ignore the warning.
9. Upgrade the operating system
You can now proceed to Catalina. Once the upgrade is complete, start Parallels Desktop and your Mojave virtual machine. (In this screenshot, Mojave works at night, so it shows the image of the night office, but it’s the same virtual machine as the one shown in the previous screens. Here, I’m launching a 32-bit application that doesn’t will not work in Catalina itself.
10. Summary
With a 32-bit application running, go to the top menu of Parallels and choose View / Enter Consistency. The 32-bit application appears in its own window on your Mac desktop, and a second top menu (the virtual Mac menu) appears under the top menu of your main macOS installation. As you can see in this window, my Mac is running Catalina, but a 32-bit application is running in a window that looks like any other application window. The virtual machine dock is visible at the bottom of the screen, but it is easy to deactivate it in the Virtual Machine System Preferences.
You can now explore Parallels options for precise control of your applications and use the System Preferences application in Virtual Mojave to automatically start one or more 32-bit applications when the virtual machine is launched. (Go to the Users and Groups preference pane, then go to the Connection Items tab.)
Another Catalina option
But what if you have already upgraded to Catalina, or if you have a new mac that only runs Catalina, and you cannot install Mojave in Parallels with the recovery partition on your Mac. All is not lost. You will need to download the Mojave installer from the Mac App Store and use it to install Mojave in Parallels.
Now that Catalina is out, Apple doesn’t display an option to download Mojave from the App Store, but it’s still on Apple’s servers. If you do a sufficiently thorough search on the Apple website, you can find the web address that opens the App Store page where you can download the Mojave installer. I did the research so you don’t have to. Just visit this Mojave page and the App Store will offer the Mojave installer to download. Or, if you prefer to download and install the previous operating system, visit the High Sierra page.
Choose the cloud icon to download the installer. Your Mac will ask you if you really want to download it; confirm that this is the case and wait for it to be downloaded to your Applications folder. Don’t run it! Instead, start Parallels Desktop, use the File / New… menu to open the Installation Wizard. Click on the central icon, “Install Windows or another operating system from a DVD or an image file”. The next screen may show the installer install macOS Mojave; if not, drag the installer into the window and follow the prompts to create and use a Mojave virtual machine, as in steps 4 to 10 above.
If you have VMware Fusion, you will need to use the same procedure whether or not you have updated Catalina. Start Fusion, click New … in the menu to open the “Select installation method”. You will see an option for “Install macOS from the recovery partition”. Do not be tempted to use it, as it will tell you that it has found no recovery partition, even if you know perfectly well that a recovery partition is there. I asked VMware about this bug, and maybe it will be fixed in a future version.
So instead of using the recovery partition, you will need to download a Mojave or High Sierra installer, as described above, and drag it to the Select the Installation window. Follow the prompts to install a virtual machine. When the new virtual system starts, use the Virtual Machine / Install VMware Tools menu to install VMware Tools. After restarting the virtual machine, drag your 32-bit applications into them and run them in the same way as you can run them in Parallels. VMware uses the name Unity for the same option that Parallels calls Coherence; it runs an application in a virtual machine in a way that looks like the program is running in a window of your main macOS installation.
You can also run applications based on Wine
What if you use a Wine-based application to run a Windows game or application? In almost all cases, the Wine-based application will not work in Catalina. The simplest solution is to install Windows in Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion and run the application on Windows. It costs money – you have to pay for a copy of Windows – and can be slow and complicated, but it’s the only solution right now. CodeWeavers, the largest provider of Wine-based software, plans to release a Catalina compatible version, but the job is not easy and it is not clear when the new version will arrive.
There is an exception to the rule that applications based on Wine will not run in Catalina: if, and only if, you are running 64-bit Wine, and if, and only if, your Windows application is a 64-bit application and one that is simple enough to run under Wine, then Wine can run it in a window under Catalina. The most effective way I have found to achieve this is to use the brilliant Wineskin Winery application – an open source project by a programmer who uses the name doh123 – in the form of its unofficial update by a programmer who uses the name Gcenx. (The original wine cellar will not work under Catalina.) If there is enough interest for this topic, we will publish a practical guide here, but there are probably too few 64-bit Windows applications usable under Wine to make it worth it. Interested readers can search for “Unofficial Wineskin Update” to get started, but be prepared to bump your head several times until you find out.
Apple has not made it easier to run 32-bit applications under Catalina, but it’s still possible. If you have found other ways to do this, please let us know in the comments section below.