Parallels Desktop for Mac Technical Documentation & Resources
- What's New in Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac
- Getting Started with Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac
- Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac User's Guide
- Parallels Transporter Agent User's Guide
- Parallels Desktop Pro Edition Command-Line Reference
- Parallels Python API Reference
- Parallels C API Reference
- Parallels Virtualization SDK Programmer's Guide
- Readme for SDK
Parallels® Desktop 17 for Mac System Requirements
Supported Mac Configurations
| Minimum To run most applications such as Microsoft Office, accounting, trading, SAP, Matlab, and more. |
Best Performance For graphics-intensive applications, high loads, and running multiple virtual machines. |
|
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Apple M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips, Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor | Apple M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips 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 application installation Additional disk space for the guest operating system (at least 16 GB is required for Windows 10) |
SSD drive |
| Graphics | Apple M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips Intel, AMD Radeon, or NVIDIA graphics cards |
Apple M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips AMD Radeon Pro graphics card |
| Operating System | macOS Monterey 12.0.1 or newer macOS Big Sur 11.6 or newer macOS Catalina 10.15.7 or newer macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or newer macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or newer |
macOS Monterey 12.0.1 or newer macOS Big Sur 11.6 or newer DirectX 11 requires at least macOS Mojave 10.14, but works best on macOS 10.15 Catalina or newer. |
| Internet connection is required for product activation, updates, and select features. | ||
Supported Guest Operating Systems (Mac with Apple M1 chip):
Only ARM versions of operating systems are supported.
- Windows 11 on ARM (recommended)
- Additional information on the M1 experience may be found in this article.
- Windows ARM can run most of the regular Windows x86 applications. You can download the Parallels Desktop trial and install the application of your interest. If it doesn't work, let us know at Parallels Forum.
- Ubuntu Linux 21.10, 21.04, 20.10, 20.04
- Fedora Workstation 35, 34, 33-1.2
- Debian GNU/Linux 11, 10.7
- Kali Linux 2021.3, 2021.2, 2021.1
- macOS Monterey 12 (in-app download)
Supported Guest Operating Systems (Mac with Intel processors):
- Windows 11 (recommended)
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows Server 2022
- Windows Server 2019
Note: Parallels Desktop for Mac emulates PC hardware, so operating systems that are not present in this list can work as well. You can download the Parallels Desktop trial and install an operating system of your choice. If it doesn't work and you believe it should be supported, let us know at Parallels Forum.
Parallels Tools for Linux require X Window System version 1.15-1.20 and Linux Kernel version 2.6.29-5.12.
Moving Your PC?
PC system requirements to move your PC to your Mac (using Parallels Transporter Agent):
- 700 MHz (or higher) x86 or x64 processor (Intel or AMD)
- 256 MB of RAM
- 50 MB of available hard disk space for installation of Parallels Transporter Agent
- Ethernet or WiFi network adapter for migrating over network
- External USB drive for migrating via external disk
- Supported Windows: Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 *
- * — To migrate Windows Vista or older, Transporter Agent from Parallels Desktop 13 should be used.
Transporter is not available for Mac with Apple M1 chip.
