Free Alternatives To Parallels For Mac

Alternatives to Parallels Access for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and more. Filter by license to discover only free or Open Source alternatives. This list contains a total of 25+ apps similar to Parallels Access.

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Parallels Alternative For Mac

Parallels Toolbox For Mac & Windows comes with over 30 apps and tools that will help you live a more productive life, and a 1-year subscription is available for 50% off at $9.99.
I know that VMWare and Virtual PC (for the PC) are now free, but a little company like Parallels can't afford that. They don't have the corporate business like VMWare and they aren't Microsoft. They are the only Mac virtualization package at any price.

Want to give macOS Mojave a spin, but don’t feel ready to upgrade from High Sierra? You can quickly set Mojave up in a virtual machine, for free.

Parallels makes it painless to set up virtual machines, and Parallels Desktop Lite is a free version that can make Linux and macOS virtual machines for free. Even better: this software works with the macOS Mojave Beta as of right now, meaning you can get a Mojave virtual machine set up quickly without having to deal with the command line or other nonsense.

RELATED:Everything New in macOS 10.14 Mojave, Available Now

All you need to do is download Parallels Desktop Lite, download the Mojave beta, and then install Mojave in a virtual machine. Here’s a full guide anyway, so you can see just how it works.

Step One: Download Parallels Lite (Free)

First up you need to download Parallels Desktop Lite from the Mac App Store. It’s not hard: open the page and click the button.

That was easy, wasn’t it? Gold stars all around.

Step Two: Download macOS Movaje (But Don’t Install It)

RELATED:How to Try the macOS Mojave Beta Right Now

Next, you’re going to download the macOS Movaje Beta. Head to beta.apple.com and sign up for the Mojave Public Beta. You’ll be prompted to Enroll your Mac:

After enrolling, you’ll download a DMG file with an installer, which you should run.

Next, you’ll be prompted to download the beta from the Mac App Store. Do so.

Eventually, the Mojave installer will open.

Do not run the installer. Instead, close it by pressing CMD+Q. If you go ahead and run the installer, it will replace High Sierra on your system, and you don’t want that. You just needed to download the installer so Parallels could use it to install Mojave into a virtual machine.

Step Three: Install Mojave in Parallels Desktop Lite

Fire up Parallels Desktop Lite and create a new virtual machine.

Click the option to “Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file” and then click “Continue.” You should eventually see macOS Mojave as an option:

Select Mojave and then click “Continue.” You’ll be told you need to create a bootable disk image file.

Click “Continue,” and Parallels will create that image. Next, you’ll be asked where you’d like to locate your virtual machine. You can also give it a different name if you want.

Next, your new virtual machine will finally start booting up.

Eventually, you will see the installer app. Begin by choosing your language.

Next, select “Install macOS” and then click “Continue.”

This will launch the installer.

Click the arrow to continue through the process.

Select your drive, which should be lableled “Macintosh HD.” Don’t worry: this is a virtual drive, not the physical hard drive on which your regular operating system is installed. Your data is safe.

Parallels For Mac Free

The installer will now run.

The process will take a while, but when it’s done, you’ll be ready to set up your virtual Mac.

You’ll find all of the usual macOS setup routines here, including creating your account. There’s one new thing to Mojave: choosing between a dark and light theme.

Eventually, you’ll get to the Mac desktop.

Congrats! You’ve got macOS Mojave running in a virtual machine. Enjoy testing out all the great features!

Optional: Install Parellels Tools

Virtual machines work better with Parallels Tools installed. These tools add extra virtual drivers that make your virtual Mac run better, and Parallels Tools actually works with macOS Mojave as of this writing. Click Actions > Install Parallels Tools in the menu bar of your host machine, and the installer will launch inside your virtual machine.

You’ll have to restart your virtual machine when this is done, but when you do, you’ll be able to do things like resize your virtual machine and share folders easily. Enjoy!

Open the Toolbox

Ironically, the marquee feature of Parallels Desktop 12 ($100 one-year Pro Edition or Business Edition subscription; $80 Standard Edition one-time purchase; $40 Student Edition one-time purchase) isn’t part of the core software at all, but a bundled standalone application called Parallels Toolbox (sold separately for $10) which is installed via Preferences. Toolbox consolidates 20 common, everyday tasks into a single menu bar window, making them easier to find and use.

These tools offer one-click simplicity for downloading or converting video, recording audio, muting the microphone, or performing system tasks such as locking the screen, hiding the desktop, preventing your Mac from going to sleep, and Do Not Disturb, which temporarily pauses notifications and Dock activity. Convenient? Yes, but none of the utilities are particularly special or unique, and power users are likely to have their own alternatives already installed.

Others are grouped into categories, providing functionality for taking screenshots, screen recording, archiving files, or managing time. I found the stopwatch, alarm, timer, and date countdown in the latter group particularly handy, since I typically defer such tasks to my iPhone or Apple Watch. Toolbox strictly works on the host OS—it has nothing to do with enhancing Mac, Windows, or Linux virtual machines.

One unfortunate side effect of Toolbox is that you’ll now have three separate Parallels icons taking up space on the menu bar: one for Toolbox, another for Desktop (when it’s actually running, of course), and a third for Parallels Access, the company’s $20 per year remote access service (included with annual Desktop subscriptions). There’s clearly room for some consolidation here, and the individual tools also add icon clutter to Launchpad, but at least they can be organized into a single folder there.

Always ready

If you spend an equal amount of time in Windows and macOS, Parallels Desktop 12 offers a number of welcome enhancements. Performance has been boosted across the board, with 25 percent faster access to shared folders and snapshots, and noticeably speedier suspend and resume—under five seconds on my 27-inch iMac Retina 5K.

VMs can now be configured to launch automatically when your Mac starts up, leaving them paused in the background while idle to avoid consuming valuable CPU time. (Remarkably, this continues to work even after quitting Desktop.) Located under Startup and Shutdown in the Options tab, “always ready in background” is accompanied by a handful of custom settings that determine how VMs behave when launched, closed, or shut down.

One of my biggest Windows 10 pet peeves is the heavy-handed approach to automatic updates. I don’t use Windows daily, so it every time I launch Parallels Desktop, performance is degraded as updates start installing in the background. The new Maintenance option allows such tasks to be blocked until the scheduled time, such as a weekend when my iMac isn’t in use. (VMs must be open at the time.) PD12 includes one year of free online storage (500GB) from Acronis, which can be used to back up your virtual machines.

Alternatives To Parallels For Mac

Desktop 12 also makes using Windows on the Mac more seamless. Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents in Safari can be configured to open in their respective desktop Office 365 applications, and passwords entered in Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge can now be saved in your Mac keychain.

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Last but not least, Parallels offers independent screen resolutions for multiple displays. In full-screen mode, my iMac runs Retina Display resolution, while the adjacent 27-inch Thunderbolt Display works as an extended 2560 x 1440 desktop, each in their own Space. (Sadly, there are no independent settings for backgrounds.)

There is at least one area where Desktop 12 takes a step back. Contextual menu shortcuts have been inexplicably removed from Control Center, which I always found quite handy for quickly reclaiming storage from my Windows VMs without having to open the Configure window.

Bottom line

Alternative To Parallels

If you already have an annual subscription, installing Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac is a no-brainer. Although the new Toolbox utilities aren’t compelling enough on their own to justify $50 for a perpetual license upgrade, the performance improvements and macOS Sierra support certainly are.

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Parallels Alternative For Mac

Desktop 12
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Pros
- 20 bundled Toolbox utilities for one-click common Mac tasks
- Big performance gains
- Always ready in background option for faster launch times
- Schedule Windows 10 maintenance, software updates
Cons
- Toolbox adds third Parallels menu bar icon
- No more contextual menu in Control Center
- Promised macOS Sierra Storage Optimization support missing