There are a variety of different ways to run MacOS Tahoe 26 beta, including installing it as an upgrade to an existing MacOS installation (which is not recommended for most people, by the way), but by far the safest and perhaps simplest way is to use a virtual machine. Virtual Machines (VM) offer isolated virtualized environments, making them perfect for testing out a new beta operating systme, like Tahoe 26. UTM, which is the VM tool we’ll focus on here, is a fantastic free virtual machine app that makes it easy to manage and run various virtualized operating systems on your Mac, including the latest MacOS Tahoe beta. UTM is easy to use, and setting up a virtualized MacOS Tahoe environment within UTM is easy too, as we’ll walk through the steps here.

To get started, you’ll need an Apple Silicon Mac that is compatible with MacOS Tahoe, the latest Xcode beta or Device Support Update (this resolves the Software Update required error if you see that), UTM for Mac (free), and a MacOS Tahoe IPSW file. The rest is just a matter of following instructions, and soon enough you’ll be running MacOS Tahoe beta within a virtualized environment, safely atop your regular MacOS installation.

How to Install & Run MacOS Tahoe 26 Beta in a Virtual Machine with UTM

Setting up and installing MacOS Tahoe 26 beta in a virtual machine is pretty easy with UTM, here are the steps:

1. Go here to get the latest version of macOS Tahoe IPSW (a direct download link for Tahoe beta 2 IPSW is here: UniversalMac_26.0_25A5295e_Restore.ipsw)
2. Download UTM for Mac if you have not done so already, it’s free, and install the app by copying to /Applications folder
3. Open UTM on the Mac
4. Select “Create a New Virtual Machine”, or click on the Plus button to create a new VM
5. Select “Virtualize”



6. Select “MacOS 12 ”



7. Next you’ll need to select the IPSW file for MacOS Tahoe beta you downloaded earlier, so click on “Browse” and choose the UniversalMac_Restore.ipsw image file which is probably in your ~/Downloads folder



8. Now it’s time to configure your VM and hardware allocations, depending on your host Mac hardware. Aim for at least 8GB RAM and 64GB of disk space, or more



9. Give the virtual machine a name, like “MacOS Tahoe beta” and choose “Save”



10. Back at the main UTM screen, select the freshly created “MacOS Tahoe beta” VM and click the big play/start button to boot it up, and then confirm that you want to install MacOS within the virtual machine *



11. The process of installing MacOS Tahoe 26 beta will begin in the virtual machine by using the IPSW restore file, and soon you’ll be confronted with the typical language and region selection screens for MacOS



12. Go through the rest of the regular macOS setup process, configuring a user name and password, and when done macOS Tahoe beta will boot into the welcome screen

* If you see an error message stating that an update is required, you can fix that by installing either the latest Xcode beta, or the Device Support Update for Tahoe from Apple, both are free downloads from developer.apple.com

Login with your freshly created username and password, and you’re running the MacOS Tahoe 26 beta.

You can try out all of the new MacOS Tahoe features, and explore the new MacOS Tahoe interface and Liquid Glass appearance, and how it changes with the light and dark themes.

Here’s the standard default Light appearance of Liquid Glass in Tahoe:

And here’s the Dark and Clear appearance of Liquid Glass in Tahoe:

You can play around with the settings and mix and match, or even color tint the icons too if you’d like.

There’s also a variety of other new features for MacOS Tahoe to explore in the beta, like the new Journal app, Phone app, changes to Spotlight including application launcher and clipboard history, amongst many other new features and changes to MacOS.

UTM is a really popular app for setting up virtual machines, and while we’re focused on MacOS Tahoe beta here, you can also use UTM to run a whole slew of different operating systems, including MacOS Sequoia, macOS Sonoma, Windows 11, Fedora Linux, Ubuntu Linux, and more.

There are other virtualization apps and options available aside from UTM, but UTM really is fantastic, especially for a free app. Aside from UTM, there’s also Viable, VirtualBuddy, VirtualBox, tart (the fastest way to setup a Tahoe beta VM for advanced users), Parallels, VMWare, Okra Desktop, and others.

Now that you’ve got your MacOS Tahoe beta virtual machine running, have fun exploring the MacOS Tahoe beta. You might be intrigued by additional topics on virtual machines too, so check those out.

Have you installed or run MacOS Tahoe beta into a virtual machine with UTM? Do prefer UTM over another VM option, or another app over UTM? Did you have any issues you experienced during the setup process? Share your experiences in the comments below!

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