Last updated on April 21, 2021
Parallels Desktop 16 System Requirements and Supported Guest Operating Systems
The system requirements and supported guest operation systems (OSes) for Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac are fully detailed below. We encourage every potential or existing user to explore the requirements prior to downloading or purchasing Parallels® Desktop. Users may be pleasantly surprised at the incredible performance of Windows, Linux, and other popular OSes on their Mac with Parallels Desktop.
Supported Apple Mac hardware configurations:
Check your Mac hardware to ensure you can run Parallels Desktop without experiencing compatibility issues. Our team would love to make sure every user gets the most out of Parallels Desktop and the virtual machines (VMs) they create.
| Minimum Requirements To run most applications such as Microsoft Office, accounting, trading, SAP, Matlab, and more. | Recommended for Best Performance For graphics-intensive applications, 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 application installation Additional disk space for the guest operating system (at least 16 GB is required for Windows 10) | Solid-state drive (SSD) |
| Graphics | Apple M1 chip, Intel, AMD Radeon or NVIDIA | Apple M1 chip,AMD Radeon Pro graphics card |
| Operating System | macOS Big Sur 11.1 or newer macOS Catalina 10.15.3 or newer macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or newer macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or newer | macOS Big Sur 11.1 or newer DirectX 11 requires at least macOS Mojave 10.14, but works best on macOS 10.15.3 Catalina or newer |
Important Note: Internet connection is required for product activation, updates and select future features.
Supported guest operating systems that can be created as Parallels Desktop virtual machines
Mac with Apple M1 chip
Only ARM versions of operating systems are supported.
- Windows 10 on ARM Insider Preview
Windows on ARM can run most of the regular Windows x86 applications. You can download the Parallels Desktop trial and install the application you need. If it doesn’t work, let us know at Parallels Forum. - Ubuntu 20.10, 20.04
- Fedora Workstation 33-1.2
- Debian GNU/Linux 10.7
- Kali Linux 2021.1
Mac with Intel processors
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows 7 (SP0-SP1)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Vista Home, Business, Ultimate and Enterprise (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows XP (SP0-SP3)
- Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Windows 2000 Server SP4
- Boot2Docker
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8, 7 and 6
- CentOS Linux 8, 7 and 6
- Fedora Linux 32, 31, 30 and 29
- Ubuntu 20.04, 19.04, 18.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS
- Debian GNU/Linux 9 and 8
- Debian GNU/Linux 19
- SUSE Linux Enterprise 15
- openSUSE Linux 15.1 and 15
- Linux Mint 20, 19 and 18
- Kali 2019 and 2018
- Elementary OS 5.0
- Manjaro 18
- Mageia 7 and 6
- Gentoo Linux **
- Solaris 11 and 10 **
- openBSD 6 **
- FreeBSD 12 and 11 **
- openVZ 7
- eComStation 2 and 1.2 **
- ReactOS 0.4 **
- Android OS*
- macOS Big Sur 11.0 (when released)
- macOS Catalina 10.15
- macOS Mojave 10.14.x
- macOS High Sierra 10.13.x
- macOS Sierra 10.12.x
- OS X El Capitan 10.11.x
- OS X Yosemite 10.10.x
- OS X Mavericks 10.9.x
- OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.x
- OS X Lion 10.7.x
- OS X Lion Server 10.7.x
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server 10.6.x
- Mac OS X Leopard Server 10.5.x
- and many more…***
*Only the version downloaded with the Parallels Desktop Installation Assistant
**Parallels Tools are not available for this operating system
Note: Parallels Desktop emulates PC hardware, so operating systems that are not present in this list can work as well. We encourage users to download a free 14-day trial of Parallels Desktop first to install the OS 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 requires X Window System version 1.15-1.20 and Linux Kernel version 2.6.29-5.1.
Moving your PC?
Below are the Windows PC system requirements to move a PC to your Mac and use it as a Parallels Desktop VM (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 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.
We sincerely hope this resource helps you navigate your experience with Parallels Desktop. Since 2006, Parallels has delivered excellence by being the #1 choice of Mac users to run Windows on Mac without rebooting. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help. The Parallels support team can be contacted on Facebook or Twitter, 24/7.
