Will MacOS work in VirtualBox through Windows, on Apple Hardware?

Discussions about using Mac OS X guests (on Apple hardware) in VirtualBox.
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AlienDrew
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Will MacOS work in VirtualBox through Windows, on Apple Hardware?

Post by AlienDrew »

For example, I'm getting a MacBook soon, and I tend to use Windows more often than I do MacOS. My question is, if I have a normal Windows 10 install on my Mac, will virtualizing MacOS work inside the Windows install?
granada29
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Re: Will MacOS work in VirtualBox through Windows, on Apple Hardware?

Post by granada29 »

Yes. This should work OK, providing your Mac is not an M1 (arm) model, and is allowed by the macOS license.

Obviously you will have other options, such as using Bootcamp and dual booting the machine and I would recommend keeping a macOS partition on the drive to allow this.

macOS under VirtualBox has a few limitations compared to running in a native mode, but it may meet your needs.
AlienDrew
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Re: Will MacOS work in VirtualBox through Windows, on Apple Hardware?

Post by AlienDrew »

granada29 wrote:Yes. This should work OK, providing your Mac is not an M1 (arm) model, and is allowed by the macOS license.
It's not the M1, it's a fairly recent MacBook Pro made in 2020 (Intel i5).
granada29 wrote:Obviously you will have other options, such as using Bootcamp and dual booting the machine and I would recommend keeping a macOS partition on the drive to allow this.
Bootcamp won't be an option as I'm wanting to use Linux (particularly Ubuntu) as my main driver. I'm not looking to dual boot, so I've already created a vm setup (combined with Xquartz and pulseaudio) to achieve a similar feel to WSL or an Ubuntu chroot.
granada29 wrote:macOS under VirtualBox has a few limitations compared to running in a native mode, but it may meet your needs.
Besides normal virtualization limitations, are there other issues that I should be aware of when trying to emulate MacOS? (especially if I'm going to emulate it from Ubuntu).
granada29
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Re: Will MacOS work in VirtualBox through Windows, on Apple Hardware?

Post by granada29 »

AlienDrew wrote: Besides normal virtualization limitations, are there other issues that I should be aware of when trying to emulate MacOS? (especially if I'm going to emulate it from Ubuntu).
  • You will not get very good graphics performance compared to a native install of macOS.
  • I've never had much joy getting audio to work in a macOS VM but YMMV.
  • You may experience problems with USB and Bluetooth devices should you wish to use them in macOS.
  • Some Apple software has problems running on a VM - e.g. I gave up trying to get Messages working but that issue may have been resolved.
Best thing to do is try it and see how you get on. As I said before, it may meet your needs.
AlienDrew
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Re: Will MacOS work in VirtualBox through Windows, on Apple Hardware?

Post by AlienDrew »

granada29 wrote: [*]You will not get very good graphics performance compared to a native install of macOS.
[*]I've never had much joy getting audio to work in a macOS VM but YMMV.
[*]You may experience problems with USB and Bluetooth devices should you wish to use them in macOS.
[*]Some Apple software has problems running on a VM - e.g. I gave up trying to get Messages working but that issue may have been resolved.[/list]
As long as all graphics are working, I think I would be fine, even if they run sluggish compared to a native install.
I've seen an official post on here about getting drivers installed to get audio working, so I don't think I'll have issues with audio (and if I do, I can just use pulseaudio anyways).
I could care less if MacOS can see/use my usb or bluetooth devices, I hardly use bluetooth devices other than maybe sometimes keyboards and mice, which wouldn't be useful in a vm anyways... and as for USB devices, I could just use the machine folder share option to the /media directory on ubuntu if I really need access to them.
It's fine if some of the apple software won't work, but is there a list of the software that won't? I'm fine if the Messages app doesn't work, as I don't own an iPhone to use it with (lmao, Android ftw).
granada29
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Re: Will MacOS work in VirtualBox through Windows, on Apple Hardware?

Post by granada29 »

AlienDrew wrote: I could care less if MacOS can see/use my usb or bluetooth devices, I hardly use bluetooth devices other than maybe sometimes keyboards and mice, which wouldn't be useful in a vm anyways... and as for USB devices, I could just use the machine folder share option to the /media directory on ubuntu if I really need access to them.
It's fine if some of the apple software won't work, but is there a list of the software that won't? I'm fine if the Messages app doesn't work, as I don't own an iPhone to use it with (lmao, Android ftw).
I've never seen a list - just be aware that not everything will run.

You don't need an iPhone to use Apple Messages - it's just another chat program that a lot of Mac users use. It probably lets you chat to iPhone users as well.

I don't usually install the Guest Additions in a macOS VM - they're still not fully featured (compared to Windows/Linux). For file xfer between guest/host I usually use scp/rsync and the like.
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