Install and activate

You need an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 27. Memory, disk space and network are in System requirements.

Install

1. Download MacVisor. The app is signed and notarized.
2. Open the DMG and drag MacVisor to Applications.
3. Open MacVisor from Applications. If you open it from the DMG instead, it offers to move itself there first.

On a standard account, have an administrator put MacVisor in /Applications. If MacVisor can't write there, it offers ~/Applications instead, but its Network Helper, which runs as root, only installs from a copy that only an administrator can change. An administrator then approves the helper once for every account; until then its item reads Waiting for an administrator.

First-run setup

1. Accept the License Agreement. On a Mac with neither a license nor a trial, this also starts your free 30-day trial.
2. Let the Setup Assistant run. Its Set Up MacVisor page sets MacVisor up as you watch, and stops only where macOS needs you to allow something (below).
3. Import your VMs, if MacVisor finds any from Parallels Desktop, UTM, VirtualBuddy or tart. Import VMs… opens the Import VMs window.
4. Create your first VM. After a short tour of the main window, pick macOS, Windows 11, Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, FreeBSD or Install from an ISO. That opens New VM with it chosen, and nothing downloads until you click Create. Or click Not Now and follow the Quickstart.

Help → Welcome to MacVisor shows these pages again.

What to allow

The Setup Assistant says exactly what to turn on, opens the right pane, and continues as soon as you have. Its other items (the mvz command, VM names, the default storage location and Open at Login) sit under More, which opens only if one of them needs you.

Local Network

VMs sit on their own local network (192.168.64.x by default), and macOS asks before an app reaches it: once for the app and once for the VM runner. Both prompts are titled MacVisor. Allow both. If you declined, turn both MacVisor entries on in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network.

Without it, MacVisor's connections to a guest's address fail with "No route to host". mvz shell, mvz exec, Docker contexts and port forwards go through the MacVisor Agent and work anyway. Commands you run yourself, such as curl http://dev.mvz:8080, need the permission for your terminal app, not MacVisor. See No route to host.

Prompts you may see later

Without Full Disk Access, macOS asks in these cases. Click Allow.

• Desktop, Documents or Downloads, the first time a VM uses one (a shared folder, or a disk or installer kept there). If a VM you made with mvz will start at login before you next open MacVisor, click Ask Now in the Setup Assistant first, so it doesn't wait on a dialog.
• An external or network volume holding VMs. Until you allow it, that storage location shows as waiting for permission, not as empty, and the VM runner asks once more when the first VM there starts. You can also allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files & Folders.

macOS also asks for Microphone access, as MacVisor VM, the first time a VM with a microphone listens to it.

Checking setup later

Assistant → Setup Assistant…, or a click on the status bar at the bottom of the sidebar, shows the checklist again. Each item says what's wrong and what to do, with a button where MacVisor can fix it, and Fix All runs the safe fixes in order. If macOS later stops the background service or the Network Helper, or asks for approval again, the Setup Assistant opens by itself.

Right after the Mac starts, the background service can take a minute; MacVisor says so while it waits. See Troubleshooting.

Trial and license

You need a trial or a license to add to your library: to create, clone or import VMs, download images, and pull or push registry images. VMs you already have keep running without one.

• The free trial has every feature for 30 days, with no key, email or checkout. It starts by itself when you accept the License Agreement, and needs the internet once. If it can't start yet (offline, say), the Setup Assistant's License row says why, with Try Again, and MacVisor keeps trying. There is one trial per Mac. On a Mac you reach only over SSH, run mvz license trial.
• A license you bought arrives by email as a key that starts with MVZ-. Paste it into Settings → License, or the Setup Assistant's License row, and click Activate. It replaces a trial in progress. One license covers every account on the Mac.

Buy MacVisor for a Pro key (one or two Macs) or a Business key (three or more), or email sales for Enterprise. Activate your license covers offline use, moving a license and fixing activation problems; Pricing and licensing has the terms.

The mvz command

The Network Helper installs the command-line tool as mvz and macvisor, the same command, in /usr/local/bin. These docs use mvz. The links follow the app when it moves or updates, and shell completion for zsh and fish is set up for you (bash, or if completion doesn't work).

mvz service status
mvz list
mvz images

Without the Network Helper, run the tool from inside the app: /Applications/MacVisor.app/Contents/Helpers/macvisor-cli.

Updates

MacVisor checks for updates once a day and asks before installing one. In Settings → Updates you can have it install them by itself when you quit. Running VMs keep running through an update.

Uninstall

Choose Assistant → Uninstall MacVisor…. It shows what it will remove before it removes anything, deactivates the license if the Mac is online, and keeps your VMs, templates, networks and SSH keys, so a reinstall picks up where you left off. Details, and uninstalling a Homebrew install, are in Uninstall MacVisor.