UTM is a free and open source virtualization and emulation application for macOS, iPhone, and iPad. Built on top of QEMU and Apple's Virtualization framework, it allows users to run Windows, Linux, BSD, macOS, and many legacy operating systems from a single, easy-to-use interface. Whether you need to test software, run another operating system, or emulate older hardware, UTM is one of the most capable virtualization solutions available for Apple devices.
Unlike traditional virtualization software that focuses only on modern operating systems, UTM supports both virtualization and full system emulation.
On Apple Silicon Macs, ARM-based operating systems can run using Apple's hardware virtualization for excellent performance. Meanwhile, operating systems built for x86, PowerPC, RISC-V, and many other CPU architectures can be emulated when necessary, allowing users to run software designed for entirely different hardware platforms.
The application provides a native macOS interface, making complex QEMU configurations much easier to manage.
Key Features of UTM
Hardware Virtualization
UTM uses Apple's Virtualization framework on supported Macs, allowing ARM-based guest operating systems to run with near-native performance.
This is ideal for running modern Linux distributions, Windows on ARM, and other compatible operating systems on Apple Silicon Macs.
Full System Emulation
When virtualization is not possible, UTM falls back to QEMU's emulation engine.
It supports more than 30 processor architectures, including:
x86
x86_64
ARM
ARM64
PowerPC
RISC-V
MIPS
SPARC
This flexibility makes UTM useful for running both modern and legacy operating systems.
Wide Operating System Support
UTM can run a large variety of guest operating systems, including:
Its ability to handle both current and historical systems makes it attractive to developers, hobbyists, and retro computing enthusiasts.
Native macOS Experience
Instead of exposing QEMU's complex command-line options, UTM provides a polished graphical interface for creating and managing virtual machines.
Configuration wizards simplify common tasks such as selecting the guest operating system, allocating memory, creating virtual disks, and configuring networking.
SPICE Integration
UTM uses the SPICE protocol to provide a smoother desktop experience for supported guests.
Features include:
These capabilities make virtual machines feel much closer to native desktop applications.
Shared Folders
Moving files between the host and guest is straightforward using shared folders.
This eliminates much of the friction normally associated with transferring files into virtual machines.
Snapshots
UTM supports virtual machine snapshots, allowing users to preserve a working state before testing software, applying updates, or experimenting with system changes.
Snapshots are especially useful for developers and testers.
Ready-to-Use Gallery
The official UTM Gallery provides downloadable virtual machine templates for many popular operating systems.
Instead of manually configuring every virtual machine, users can often download a prepared configuration and begin installation immediately.
Cross-Platform Availability
UTM is available for:
The macOS version offers the fullest feature set. On iOS and iPadOS, capabilities depend on Apple's platform restrictions, with UTM SE offering broader compatibility but slower emulation because it does not use JIT.
Download UTM Virtual Machines v4.7.5 - Software Mirrors |
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UTM Virtual Machines v4.7.5 for macOSUTM.dmg | 238.44 MB |
UTM Virtual Machines v4.7.5 for iOSUTM.ipa | 124.03 MB UTM.deb | 122.69 MB UTM-visionOS.ipa | 121.94 MB UTM-SE.ipa | 203.97 MB UTM-SE-visionOS.ipa | 202.12 MB UTM-Remote.ipa | 32.59 MB UTM-Remote-visionOS.ipa | 30.74 MB UTM-HV.ipa | 124.03 MB |
UTM Virtual Machines v4.7.5 Source CodeUTM Virtual Machines v4.7.5 Source code (zip) UTM Virtual Machines v4.7.5 Source code (tar.gz) |
UTM Virtual Machines v4.7.5 Release Notes:HighlightsQEMU v10.0.2: The backend has been updated to the latest upstream QEMU which brings with it a variety of bug fixes and performance improvements. Liquid Glass: UTM adopts the Liquid Glass design on *OS 26. App Intents: New support for automation with Shortcuts. Keyboard Shortcuts: Define custom key combinations (such as Ctrl+Alt+Del) that can be sent to the VM from the new Keyboard menu. Improved Wizard: Simplify the creation of emulated machines by selecting from a list of well-supported configurations. The updated wizard can create more working configurations such as RISC-V64 Ubuntu, classic Mac OS 8.x/9.x, and Windows 95/98.
Changes (v4.7.5)Fixed some rare conditions that could lead to a VM fail to start and spin infinitely Fixed some rare crashes that can happen after a VM stops Fixed parsing of file paths with commas in the name (thanks @nikolan123) ANGLE: Fixed a memory leak issue in the GLES backend (#7546) (thanks @cnnn) ANGLE: Fixed a memory leak issue in the Metal backend (#4958) Localization: Updated Chinese (Hong Kong, Simplified) (thanks @changanmoon) (macOS) Fixed App Intents on macOS 26 (#7412) (thanks @peterneutron) (macOS) Fixed an error when file locking is disabled and a removable drive with no image selected is started (#7527) (macOS) AVF: Fixed shared directory disconnecting when window is resized (#7488) (thanks @evan314159) Hotfix: (1/3/25) An earlier release of v4.7.5 has an issue that prevented VMs from starting. Make sure you are on build 118.
Changes (v4.7.4)(macOS) Fixed a crash on VM start when a toolbar menu was reinitialized (note v4.7.4 was re-released to address this) (#7408) Home: Fixed layout issue with button titles (macOS) Fixed a crash when VM exits while USB is active (iOS) Support for StikDebug on iOS 26 (non-SE only)
Changes (v4.7.3)Fixed a crash when starting a VM results in a block device error Stop button can now be used a second time to force kill a VM if it is unresponsive after stopping for the first time libusb: Fixed multiple race conditions that caused crashes when using USB capture CocoaSpice: Fixed multiple race conditions that caused crashes during VM start Localization: Updated Chinese (Hong Kong, Simplified) (thanks @changanmoon) (macOS) Scripting: Fixed broken commands due to name collision (#7360) (macOS) Fixed crash when exiting full screen (#7377)
Changes (v4.7.2)(macOS) AVF: Fixed a crash when starting any Apple Virtualization VM (#7355) (We are re-releasing v4.7.2 with build 112 due to this critical bug.) Home: Display network details and active IP addresses on the home details screen (thanks @gabefair) Home: Show a security warning message when importing a .utm with custom arguments (#6252) Config: Option to reset UEFI without pre-loading Secure Boot keys (useful for custom TPM configurations) (#7005) Config: Pre-loading Secure Boot keys will now install Microsoft UEFI 2023 certificates (#7257) Config: When PS/2 device is enabled, no longer create USB mouse and keyboard devices. This allows older Windows install to work out of the box. Config: Quotes in custom arguments are no longer stripped (unless the only quotes wrap the entire argument) (#6343) Config: Provide a fixed serial number for VirtIO block devices (#7332) QEMU: Fixed an issue which causes Windows 98 to BSoD (#7342) QEMU: Do not create a default floppy drive when -nodefaults is used. UTM configuration will set up a FDC device and this is the only way to set up bootindex for floppy. Wizard: Legacy Windows configurations will now use PS/2 controller by default Wizard: Update OS logos to be consistent with other icons Wizard: Windows + i440fx hardware will now instantiate default devices (sound, VGA, networking) that should work with Windows 95/98 Wizard: Add additional supported hardware configurations for running older Windows Wizard: Support floppy boot for Windows configuration Scripting: New input automation suite for sending keyboard and mouse input (#6462) USB: Fixed a rare crash when initializing the USB devices list (#5811) SPICE: Fixed an issue where monitor configuration sent to spice-vdagent contains an invalid size (#5832) Localization: Updated Chinese (Hong Kong, Simplified) (thanks @changanmoon) (iOS) Toolbar: Fix foreground issue on iOS 26 beta 5 and higher (macOS) Added ability to auto-connect USB devices on start (#3400) (macOS) Fixed connecting USB devices from secondary windows (macOS) New "Virtual Machine" menu which mirrors the actions accessible through the toolbar (macOS) Keyboard Shortcuts toolbar icon is no longer shown by default (it can be placed on the toolbar through View -> Customize Toolbar). It is also accessible through the "Virtual Machine" menu. (macOS) Fixed sending simultaneous mouse button presses (#7068) (macOS) utmctl: Add version command to detect current UTM version (macOS) Settings: New option to disable key swapping on ISO keyboards (#6976) (macOS) Settings: New option to randomize network MAC addresses on clone (#7035)
Changes (v4.7.1)New Liquid Glass icon thanks to @forcequitOS Added App Intents for VM operations (#6245) Added UEFI boot support for RISC-V64 and LoongArch64. This allows Ubuntu for RISC-V64 to work out of the box. (#7183) QEMU PPC: Disable bootindex when boot-device is used in prom-env. This allows Yellow Dog Linux for PPC to work out of the box. (#6436) QEMU x86_64: Fixed floppy boot order configuration for other PC models (isapc, i440fx) (#7166) QEMU PPC/M68K: Includes classicvirtio drivers to support cursor input without capture and directory sharing (#6520) QEMU M68K: Fixed virtio drive config (#7008) Fixed a rare crash after stopping VM due to a race condition in libusb Home: improve screenshot contrast in Dark Mode (#6894) Config: Fixed a crash when trying to enter a large size value when creating a new drive (#7295) Config: Corrected the default host IP address in port forwarding config to "0.0.0.0" when it incorrectly displayed "127.0.0.1" (#7132) Keyboard Shortcuts: Create custom combinations of keyboard shortcuts from either Settings -> Input or via the Keyboard icon in the VM (press and hold on iOS/visionOS). This will allow you to easily send key commands such as Ctrl+Alt+Del or Stop+A to the VM. (#5698, #6310, #6757) Wizard: New option to import an existing drive image when setting up a Linux VM. This allows Ubuntu for RISC-V64 to work out of the box. (#7183) Wizard: New option to create a serial port only Linux VM. This allows Ubuntu for RISC-V64 to work out of the box. (#7183) Wizard: Removed VHDX import option because Microsoft now provides ARM64 ISO images. Note: You can still create manually import an VHDX after creating a new VM. Wizard: New template to create classic Mac OS VMs for M68K and PPC (#3504, #6890) Wizard: Most common and supported machines for emulation are now listed prominently with the full list of supported QEMU architectures/targets hidden behind an "Expert" mode. This is necessary because most of the QEMU targets are not properly supported by the wizard anyways and does not generate a bootable config. They usually require a lot more manual tinkering. The page order of the wizard is also tweaked so the hardware config comes before the boot config now. Localization: Updated Chinese (Hong Kong, Simplified) (thanks @changanmoon) (iOS SE) Fixed a crash when launching ArchLinux due to mis-handling of REV32 (iOS SE) Fixed a crash when the first instruction executed is a goto (iOS SE) Removed ARM32, RISC-V32, and added M68K. There is little use for ARM32 and RISC-V32 as they cannot boot anything useful that cannot also be booted by the 64-bit variant (which is still included). If you have a counter example of this, please open an issue on GitHub and we can consider re-adding it back in the future. However, removing these will make the app size a lot smaller. M68K is added to support classic Mac OS. (macOS 11) Fixed guest tools mounting (#7297) (macOS 11) Fixed stop button not working (#7298) (macOS) Fixed a bug where an error message on startup leads to the window being stuck (#7161) (macOS) Settings: New setting to disable file locking so VMs can be launched from a network share or a filesystem that does not support locking (#7211) (macOS) Settings: New setting to disable screenshots completely for privacy reasons (#6620) (macOS) Settings: New setting to swap Ctrl and Cmd keys in VMs (#4003) (macOS 26) Settings: Brand new layout with a sidebar to match other native apps (macOS) AVF: Added clearer message when trying to install macOS beta without having the latest beta support tools installed (macOS) AVF: New option to resize (expand) disk images (#6891) (macOS 26) Fixed a layout issue with the resize image popover (macOS) Home: Fixed hide sidebar button (macOS) Config: Show localized network adapter names when available (#7287) (thanks @Schamper) (macOS) Scripting: Fixed an issue where wrong UUIDs were generated for display configs (#7145)
Changes (v4.7.0)Updated to QEMU v10.0.2 Config: In the RAM slider, the maximum value has been increased to 64GiB (note that you can always go above the slider limit by typing in the text box) (#7234) Localization: Updated Chinese (Hong Kong, Simplified) (thanks @changanmoon) Wizard: Fixed crash when VM name is empty (#7245) (iOS) Toolbar: Refactored toolbar button layout code (macOS) Host only networks: you can set up multiple host-only networks (including ones shared by VMware) and have multiple VMs on the same virtual network (thanks @Schamper) (macOS) utmctl: added option to boot Apple VMs into recovery mode (thanks @cees-elzinga) (macOS) Enable QEMU support for vmapple (#7150) Machine model is removed for stability reasons but apple-gfx-pci is still supported for Intel VMs (macOS) Rename the main window to 'UTM Library' (#7264) (macOS) Display an error when IPSW install fails to load the file (instead of crashing) (#6855) (macOS) Settings: Fixed a layout issue (#7117) (macOS) Apple Virtualization: Add support for ASIF drive images. On macOS 26, ASIF drives will be created by default.
Issues Please check the full list on Github and help report any bug you find that is not listed. Installation [1]: https://getutm.app/install/ [2]: https://github.com/osy/Jitterbug |
Performance and User Experience
UTM delivers one of the best virtualization experiences available on Apple hardware.
On Apple Silicon Macs, ARM virtual machines perform remarkably well thanks to hardware acceleration. Linux distributions feel responsive enough for everyday development, testing, and server workloads.
Running x86 operating systems through emulation is naturally slower, but performance is still good enough for many development tasks, legacy applications, and retro operating systems.
The interface deserves particular praise. While QEMU is incredibly powerful, its configuration can be intimidating. UTM simplifies nearly every aspect of virtual machine management without hiding advanced options from experienced users.
The project also continues to receive regular updates. Recent releases have upgraded to newer QEMU versions, improved the virtual machine creation wizard, added Shortcuts automation, introduced customizable keyboard shortcuts, and included numerous stability improvements.
Pros
Free and open source.
Excellent native macOS interface.
Supports both virtualization and full emulation.
Hardware acceleration on Apple Silicon.
More than 30 CPU architectures supported.
Runs Windows, Linux, BSD, and many legacy operating systems.
Shared folders and clipboard support.
Snapshot functionality.
Ready-made VM gallery.
Active development.
Available on macOS, iPhone, and iPad.
Cons
x86 emulation is slower than native virtualization.
Some advanced QEMU settings still require technical knowledge.
iOS and iPadOS versions are limited by Apple's platform restrictions.
Certain guest operating systems require manual configuration.
Gaming performance is generally not comparable to running operating systems natively.
Who Should Use UTM?
UTM is an excellent choice for developers, system administrators, cybersecurity professionals, students, IT professionals, and retro computing enthusiasts.
It is particularly well suited to Apple Silicon Mac owners who need to run Linux or Windows alongside macOS without purchasing commercial virtualization software.
It is also valuable for anyone experimenting with different processor architectures or preserving legacy software that no longer runs on modern hardware.
Final Verdict
UTM successfully combines the flexibility of QEMU with a polished native Apple interface, making virtualization far more approachable than using QEMU directly. Its support for hardware virtualization, full CPU emulation, snapshots, shared folders, and a broad range of operating systems makes it one of the best virtualization tools available for Apple devices.
While commercial solutions may offer additional enterprise features or optimized Windows virtualization, UTM's combination of open source licensing, excellent usability, and extensive hardware support makes it an outstanding choice for most Mac users.
For developers, testers, and enthusiasts looking for a free virtualization platform on macOS, UTM is among the very best options available.
