Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac and Parallels Mac Management for Microsoft SCCM now provide full support for Mac OS X El Capitan as both a host and guest.
Apple’s “one more thing” event on November 10, 2020, revealed the first Mac computers powered by the Apple M1 chip.
Parallels is excited to see the performance, power efficiency, and virtualization features that are brought to the Mac with the Apple M1 chip. The transition to Mac with the M1 chip should be smooth for most Mac applications, thanks to Rosetta technology. Fortunately, Parallels Access™, Parallels® Toolbox, and Parallels® Client software worked smoothly as universal binaries even before Parallels rebuilt them. However, virtual machines are an exception and Parallels engineers proactively implemented native virtualization support for Mac computers with the M1 chip. This enables our users to enjoy the best Windows-on-Mac experience ever.
Learn more about the new version in this blog post.
When Apple Silicon Mac was first announced during the keynote at WWDC on June 22 of this year, Apple demoed a Parallels Desktop for Mac prototype running a Linux virtual machine flawlessly on Apple Silicon. Since WWDC, the new version of Parallels Desktop, which runs on Mac with the Apple M1 chip, has made tremendous progress. We switched Parallels Desktop to universal binary and optimized its virtualization code; Apple M1 Mac computers and macOS Big Sur became available, and Microsoft announced and then introduced support for x86_64 applications in Windows on ARM Insider Preview.
As our customers know, Parallels cares deeply about the quality of our software products and the experience they provide. With macOS Big Sur and the new Mac with Apple M1 chip available, we continue to conduct more extensive evaluations, both in our lab and with your help via the Parallels Technical Preview Program. More than 100,000 M1 Mac users tested the Technical Preview of Parallels Desktop 16 for M1 Mac and ran Microsoft’s Windows 10 on ARM Insider Preview, as well as tens of thousands of different Intel-based Windows applications—including Microsoft Office for Windows, Microsoft Visual Studio, SQL Server, Microsoft PowerBI, and MetaTrader.
We received enthusiastic feedback about the remarkable performance of both the Technical Preview of Parallels Desktop 16 for M1 Mac and Windows 10 on ARM Insider Preview as well as x86 applications and the games inside it, including Rocket League, Among Us, Roblox, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Sam & Max Save the World, and many others. Testers loved Parallels Desktop’s easy to use features, and seamless integration of Windows and its applications with macOS Big Sur, which increased their productivity.

On April 14th 2021, the new update for Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac was released and now features support for both Mac computers with Intel processor as well as Mac computers with Apple M1 chip.

Software virtualization solution provider Parallels has today announced the availability of Parallels Desktop 16 for macOS. The update mainly brings performance improvements and support for macOS 11 Big Sur, in addition to other enhancements to storage management and battery usage. The company says that it has invested heavily to bring support for Apple’s latest OS that includes revamping kernel extensions.
The firm boasts that Desktop version 16 is “THE fastest version ever released”, adding that the start-up speeds are two times faster than previous versions and that resuming and quitting Windows has also become 20% faster. Graphics performance has also been improved, with DirectX 11-based apps seeing up to 20% performance gains. The new release improves OpenGL support for both Windows and Linux, bringing better support for more Windows applications and games that leverage the APIs. Additionally, it adds that the new version “includes the world’s first support for applications with 3D capabilities running in a macOS Big Sur VM”.
In addition to bringing performance benefits, Parallels Desktop 16 improves battery life by up to 15% when using Windows in ‘Travel Mode’. The tool also brings a new storage management feature that can let users “reclaim” available disk space when they shut down Windows, improving storage availability.
The new release brings further integration with macOS that lets users share printers, enable “safe removal check” to avoid accidentally deleting macOS files when working in Windows, and improved trackpad gesture support. There are other enhancements to Linux VMs that improve performance, support for Metal graphics acceleration in macOS Big Sur VMs, and more. The firm adds that it is working with Apple to bring virtualization capabilities to Macs running on Apple Silicon.
Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition and Business Edition users will also receive new features that bring improved virtual machine deployment, the ability to name custom networks, support for 128GB of virtual RAM and 32 virtual CPUs, Microsoft Visual Studio Plugin, and more.
