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How to generate a installer package for mac app? That builds a product archive for the macOS Installer or the Mac App. That need to run during the installation. Available from Github, the new release sees Windows 95 effectively run as a single app on the Mac or PC, and amazingly the whole thing takes up less than 200MB of RAM once it is up and running.
While Mac has a huge app infrastructure all its own, there are a lot of times when a new game or application is available only on Android. When that happens, rather than dig out a separate Android device, wouldn’t it be nice if you could run Android apps too? If you’re a Mac developer and want to cross-develop for Android, wouldn’t it be great if you could test your creations on your Mac directly? Well, great news – whether you just want to play a particular game or develop apps for Android as well as iOS, there are a few ways you can run Android APK files on a Mac.
Also see our article Today I’ll cover three different ways to run Android APK files on a Mac, Bluestacks, ARC Welder and Andy OS. Each works slightly differently and offers different features and challenges. One of these is bound to meet your needs.
Bluestacks AppPlayer The BlueStacks AppPlayer is a very accomplished Android emulator that works on Mac and Windows. It creates a virtual host where Android OS can run seamlessly and run apps, work with the Google Play Store and do pretty much everything it would do in its native environment. Unfortunately, official support for BlueStacks on the Mac was discontinued in November of 2017.
However, you can still use BlueStacks on your Mac, there just isn’t support from the developer any longer. You may also have to hunt around the Internet for the download files, as the developers have removed BlueStacks from their page. To use BlueStacks to run Android APK files on your Mac:. Download and install BlueStacks AppPl. Run the program and allow it to update. Log in using a Google account and allow the Google Play Store to set itself up. Add any app from the Store or load an APK file from your Mac into Bluestacks.
To add an APK file to Bluestacks, all you need do is right click or double click the file and open with Bluestacks. The program will then pick up the APK file and run it within the emulator. Once loaded, Bluestacks is pretty good.
It is still a little sluggish and buggy, even on the latest Mac hardware, but once working it’s basically a genuine Android environment. If you’re developing, you can be reasonably certain that what happens in BlueStacks will happen on a genuine Android device.
A couple of app developers I know use this method to test their creations and report that it reacts just like genuine Android. ARC Welder If you’d rather have something with a little more support, you can try ARC Welder, a Chrome browser add-on that works in any OS. I have it working on my Mac and it is pretty good. The benefit over BlueStacks is that it functions within your browser, has some support from the developer, and doesn’t require you to go look around shady sites on the Internet. The downside is that it can only run one APK file or app at a time and doesn’t replicate the Android environment as fully as BlueStacks.
If you just want to try an app or experiment with an APK file, ARC Welder could be useful. If you want to do anything more serious, you might need one of the other two apps. Download and install. Set up a new folder to store APK files. Open ARC Welder and select Choose when the window pops up, and add your APK. Select the APK file in your new folder and select display mode.
Hit Test to run the APK. As ARC Welder is made by Google, most apps run very well. Some don’t, though, but this is down to individual apps rather than the emulator itself. I have tested Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Nitrous and a few others within ARC Welder and they all work perfectly. Some games and other chat apps don’t work, and I have experienced a couple of errors but no showstoppers. ARC Welder is a good way to run Android APK files on a Mac if you’re not developing or wanting to run multiple apps.
If you just want to run WhatsApp or Snapchat on your Mac without installing their Mac-specific apps, this could do it. Andy OS The last, and probably most effective, way to run Android APK files on a Mac is by using Andy OS. Andy OS got some bad press in the early days for having intrusive ads, but these seemed to have calmed down. Andy OS was also a bit slow to be updated when new Mac OS versions dropped, but that process seems to have gotten quicker as well. I use Andy OS regularly and have had no issues with it.
Andy OS works a lot like BlueStacks. It has its own installer and runs a virtual Android OS within your Mac. It works on Windows PCs too, and performs okay on both machines. I experience less lag with Andy than with BlueStacks but that might just be me. Watch out for the Norton installer, just decline it. The program will auto-run once installed and will automatically install any dependencies so let it do its thing.
Once the program loads, it will show you the Android desktop, which you can configure however you like. To load an app, point Andy OS to the APK file and it will automatically load it. Andy OS automatically detects webcams, game controllers, mice, keyboards and any other peripheral you have connected to your Mac. It also supports gestures too, which is nice. Andy OS is a fully featured Android emulator that work seamlessly on Mac OS.
It takes a while to install and configure, but once installed, works very well. Google Play Store works, sideloading APK files works, and games work. Andy OS also has a user group presence on Facebook and provides tech support via e-mail. The sole downside is the presence of ads. You will see full screen ads load periodically, which can be annoying, but considering the program is free, I can’t complain too much. So there are three different ways to run Android APK files on a Mac.
Each does the job slightly differently and offers a range of features and downsides for you to consider. It’s really terrific to be able to load up a game on a beautiful full-sized Mac monitor display instead of squinting at a 5″ phone screen, and these applications let us do that.
Back in April of 2018 and depending upon the software you run, you may have noticed a is not optimized for your Mac. This message pops up when you run a 32 bit application on macOS High Sierra. Typically, 32 bit applications tend to be older, legacy apps that may not have newer 64 bit versions. Although the application will run fine, Apple is likely gearing up to no longer support these 32 bit applications in a future version of macOS. Running older software The issue with running old versions of software is that it can eventually 'break' and not function on a future version of the OS you are running it on. You can hope that the vendor of your application will keep on updating the software to run on future OS updates, but what if you have a very specific program that is no longer maintained? Or perhaps you have a software license for your current version of an application but upgrading to a more modern version introduces too great a cost?
Running a virtual machine One possible solution to the 32 bit application dilemma is to run a version of the latest macOS that fully supports your app in a virtual machine. A virtual machine, or VM, is an emulated computer running on top of your current OS installation as a program. The VM takes resources from your actual computer and uses them to run itself in a contained environment as a separate system all together. Think of it like the Matrix where the real world is your physical computer and the 'dream' world in the VM.
Benefits of a VM Since you needn't buy new hardware, you can simply run an instance of the macOS version that will run your application without issue regardless of that app being 32 bit or 64 bit for as long as you keep your VM. If you upgrade the macOS on your physical Mac, the VM version is completely separate from that process so you'll still be able to keep the 'old' macOS on the VM and run the 'new' macOS for all of your other up-to-date programs.
You'll be able to have your proverbial cake and eat it to. Setting up a VM There are a few options for VM software solutions for you to choose from. You can run,. All of the non-open source VM managers have free 'lighter' versions that will serve our purpose but you can get their full fledge versions that provide various features that are beyond the scope of this article. We will be using that is freely downloadable from the App Store.
We chose Parallels Lite due to their ease of setup and ability to function on top of a macOS host passing system information that is needed for the guest macOS to properly install. Note that if one day you'd want to change your Mac's operating system to Windows or Linux then you'd might want to install one of the other mentioned VM managers since those can run on those host OSs albeit with a much more involved setup. We will also be using as the installed OS. You can use these instructions for older versions as well. Credit to for the command line bits to make a disk image to install macOS High Sierra from their Virtualbox install instructions on Windows 10. Download from the App Store.
Download (but do not install). We need to create the install image so we need to start Terminal.
![How to run installer on mac for apps How to run installer on mac for apps](http://photos2.insidercdn.com/gallery/16516-13435-Screenshot-2016-04-14-011657-l.jpg)
In Terminal in your home directory type or copy and paste line by line the following:. hdiutil create -o HighSierra.cdr -size 7316m -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J. hdiutil attach HighSierra.cdr.dmg -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/installbuild. asr restore -source /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/installbuild -noprompt -noverify -erase. hdiutil detach /Volumes/OS X Base System. hdiutil convert HighSierra.cdr.dmg -format UDTO -o HighSierra.iso.
mv HighSierra.iso.cdr HighSierra.iso. Start Parallels Lite. Select Linux only. Click Continue.
Select Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file. Click Continue. Select Image File. Click Select a file. Navigate to your home directory and select the HighSierra.iso file we created in terminal.
Click Open. Click Continue. Select macOS as the operating system type. Navigate to the folder to house the VM. Click Select.
Name your VM and click Create. You can optionally setup any VM options you desire such as (note that these can be changed later too):. Startup and sharing settings in the Options tab. Choose CPU, memory and graphic options in the Hardware tab.
Still under the Hardware Tab select the CD/DVD sub option. Click the dropdown arrow for Source. Select Chose an Image File.
Navigate to your home folder and select the HighSierra.iso file we created in terminal. Select Open. Select Continue. You can now Start the VM. Install macOS like you would normally do on any real system.
Once you have a completed install, you'll want to install the Parallels Tools program in your VM macOS. This will allow you to be able to seamlessly use your mouse between your real desktop and your VM desktop as well as resize your VM screen on the fly with proper display attributes. Click the highlighted yellow exclamation point over your VM window. Click Continue. On your VM double click the Parallels Tools installer that opens. Complete the installation and reboot your VM.
Final comments You now have a full fledged macOS installation that you can keep for your older 32 bit applications once macOS decides to give them the boot. You'll be able to make snapshots of the VM to have different save states. You'll be able to run all native macOS applications you normally do. The drawback will be speed of execution and disk speed but if you have a powerful Mac, you may not notice too much of a difference depending on the application.
Does this solution work for you? Tell us what you'd rather see happen for 32 bit applications on macOS in the comments! This post may contain affiliate links. See our for more details.