Download VirtualBox on your Mac machine, and then set it up with the necessary ISO image from Android-x86.org. You’ll be able to create an efficient emulator that allows you to play almost any.

Used macos-guest-virtualbox script. The VM correctly authenticates the AppleID and iCloud during setup. However, when iMessage is started and AppleID and password are provided, the VM churns for a while and then the login message box refreshes with no app launch. NVRAM parameters modeled on an existing Macbook. Portable-VirtualBox is a free and open source software tool that lets you run any operating system from a usb stick without separate installation. Installation instructions Download and run Portable-VirtualBoxv5.1.22-Starterv6.4.10-Winall.exe. Choose a folder to extract to. Install Android OS on VirtualBox and VMware. Note: It doesn’t matter which operating system you are using it could be Linux, Windows or Mac because the process of working with Virtual or Vmware is the same for all of them. I don’t do Windows, but VirtualBox lets you work in Linux, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, other versions of macOS, and perhaps even MorphOS and other less-well-known operating systems. I mostly use it for Andy, an Android emulator from Andyroid.net. Sometimes a 4″ iPhone screen is just too small, and many mobile games are available for both iOS and Android.

You can run MacOS in Virtualbox. Because? Because.

In the pursuit of Hackintosh, you need a Mac. That’s well and great, but I didn’t want to screw around with my partner’s Macbook. So what if you want to sandbox something? Virtualbox!

I had no expectations that this was going to work. OS X has always been runnable in Virtualbox for a while, but the performance has normally been lacklustre. While it’s not exactly daily-driver level, the performance in Virtualbox wasn’t too bad!

The macOS Virtualbox option is designed for genuine Apple hardware. You will not get community support from Virtualbox if you have trouble with this process, as it’s against Apple ToS.

VMware more your jam? We’ve got this working in there too.

🤔️ What do I need?

You need a donor Mac to start this process. You will not need access to it permanently, but just during the process of creating an ISO for your VM to setup with. Else, you need:

• A Mac to create an ISO with.
• MacOS Mojave installer from the Mac App Store.
• Virtualbox (Windows, Linux or MacOS).
  • Virtualbox Extension Pack is required.
• At least 4GB of RAM (8GB or more recommended).
• 40GB of free disk space (more preferred).
• 2 core CPU or more.

This guide will discuss installing MacOS Mojave, however installation process should be similar for all MacOS versions.

⚠️ At the time of writing, Virtualbox and Hyper-V cannot co-exist on Windows. MacOS is also not installable on Hyper-V. I use Linux in my screenshots as I use Docker on Windows. This also includes Windows Subsystem for Linux, which tripped me up from installing.

💿 Creating the ISO

Virtualbox installs generally prefer to use an ISO file, which unfortunately will require some handiwork to get a hold of. Persevere and you will get there!

On the MacOS machine, download the Mojave installer. Don’t worry about actually running this application, as we’re going to use some terminal magic to build the ISO from the package.

This process is not affected by MacOS Installer expiry.If your MacOS installer has expired, you can continue with this guide.

Once the package has been downloaded, pop open Terminal (Utilities folder in Launcher), and run the following commands:

hdiutil create -o /tmp/Mojave.cdr -size 8000m -layout SPUD -fs JHFS+

This will create a virtual ‘disc’ stored in your temporary directory. This is what we’ll stuff the Mojave installation stuff into.

hdiutil attach /tmp/Mojave.cdr.dmg -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/installer_goes_here

Now MacOS can ‘see’ your disc as an actual disc, ready for writing to!

asr restore -source /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/SharedSupport/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/installer_goes_here -noprompt -noverify -erase

We’re now grabbing the installation DMG from within the updater package, and storing it within the disc image. This will rename the disc image, so don’t panic that ‘installer_goes_here’ has vanished.

Now, detach the image from our MacOS. You can just eject it like regular DMGs. If not, run the command:

hdiutil detach /Volumes/OS X Base System

(it may change since OS X is legacy. To check, run ls /Volumes and see if it’s there, renamed).

Now for the final process, let’s convert our CDR image to an ISO!

hdiutil convert /tmp/Mojave.cdr.dmg -format UDTO -o ~/Desktop/Mojave.iso

You should now have a file on the Mac desktop called ‘Mojave.iso’. Congratulations, you have your installation disc! Copy this over to where your Virtualbox is setup. The Mac is no longer needed at this point.

🛠️ Setting up Virtualbox

⚠️ Before continuing, install the Virtualbox Extension Pack, if you haven’t already. This comes with a special USB 3 driver that without, the Mac simply won’t see USB devices.

Virtualbox has the option for a MacOS virtual machine in it’s New VM dialog, but we will need to make further adjustments to make it truly Mac-ready.

Pop open Virtualbox, and Create a new Virtual Machine. Name this MacOS Mojave, and set it to Mac OS X (64-bit).

Virtualbox Android Mac Os

Set the RAM to 4096 MB (or higher if you can achieve it!).

When creating the disk, you can use either format versions. Dynamic will not immediately take up the storage size you chose, whereas Static immediately reserves the chosen size for the VM. The latter is slightly better for performance.

Now you should have a new, primed MacOS machine. But you will need to run some commands now. This can be hit-and-miss, and may require some Google-fu. The following works for my AMD FX computer:

Windows? Change VBoxManage to 'C:Program FilesOracleVirtualBoxVBoxManage.exe' (if you didn’t change your Virtualbox install location).

The above does the following, in order of command:

• Sets a known CPU ID set that MacOS will recognise.
• Especially for AMD machines, changes what MacOS sees as your processor to something it supports.
• Tells MacOS you’re installing Mojave onto a mid-2010 iMac. You can change this to your preference.
• These two specify a fake DMI, typically found in Apple PCs.
• A device key to pass system checks.

Before starting the VM, open the VM settings and make the following changes:

• System > Processor > Processor(s) is 2 or more.
• System > Acceleration > uncheck Enable Nested Paging.
• Display > Screen > Video Memory is 128MB.
• USB > USB 3.0 Controller.
  • If greyed/not there, you did not install additions.

With all that done, we’re ready to start the VM!

You should be greeted with the following screen:

Click on the folder icon, and find your ISO created on the Mac before, then click Start.

And wait. yes, this process takes a long time. If your installation stops, try googling the last output message to see if there is a community fix, or post below… Otherwise, this is generally a slow process.

If all has gone well, you should be greeted by the MacOS installer language selection. If so, you’re almost there! On the top menu, open Utilities > Disk Utility.

There should be a disk named VBOX HARDDISK or similar. This is the VDI you created during the setup process, and not your actual hard drive. So go ahead and full-erase this disk, with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID Partition Map.

Once the disk formatting has completed, close it down. You should now be able to start the installation!

Once this is complete and you filled all the required details in, congratulations! You’re running MacOS Mojave within Virtualbox!

❓ What works?

✔️ Does

• Screen (No 3D).
• Regular input methods (mouse sharing).
• Networking.
• USB devices.
• Mac App Store.

At the end of the day it’s still a virtual machine, and a technically unsupported one at that. However, considering the matter it’s still impressive how Virtualbox can cope with MacOS.

Files can be shared using typical Windows share features. If you share a folder on your network from your host machine, your Mac VM should be able to connect to it.

🌟 Special Thanks

This required a lot of Googling, and these are the people who saved me at the end of the process!

• This How-to Geek article, that started this whole process. They have a much better step-by-step guide on this!
• Forchia on Reddit for a different instruction set.
• miranhasan on Reddit for AMD processors.
• kvotheV on Reddit for disabling nested paging.

🐛 Troubleshooting

This is a difficult one, and will require investigation. I checked the logs as the error message said, and discovered:

HM: HMR3Init: Attempting fall back to NEM: AMD-V is not available

Obviously, check if this is enabled. If you’re on a legacy BIOS computer, it’s a straightfoward scan for AMD-V/VT-x in your settings. If it’s UEFI, you’re gonna have to Google it.

Strangely, on my machine it was enabled. Supposedly Virtualbox and Hyper-V can run side-by-side, so at this point I decided to remove Hyper-V, to see if that would improve. It didn’t, but I forgot something. For this to work, you must turn off Windows Subsystem for Linux!

I completely forgot that WSL uses Hyper-V, and apparently still does when it’s disabled. Unfortunately, it would seem (for me at least) you need to trade it off for macOS in Virtualbox.

I will retest this when WSL2 is launched.

Mac sales have been growing ever since Apple moved from PowerPC to Intel processors, in no small part because that made it possible to run Windows on Macs at full speed. No more Intel emulation. No more DOS cards. Boot Camp and then virtualization apps made it easy to run other operating systems on Intel-based Macs.

The best low-end virtualization solution is VirtualBox, a free virtualizer for modern Macs. I don’t do Windows, but VirtualBox lets you work in Linux, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, other versions of macOS, and perhaps even MorphOS and other less-well-known operating systems.

Install Mac Os Virtualbox

I mostly use it for Andy, an Android emulator from Andyroid.net. Sometimes a 4″ iPhone screen is just too small, and many mobile games are available for both iOS and Android.

One drawback is that there are an awful lot of settings in VirtualBox but little in the way of advice on which ones work best. How much memory should I allocate? How about video memory? Should I let it use 100% of my processing power? Do any of the acceleration settings work? What settings will prevent it from working?

I’ve been learning as I go, and these are some of my discoveries. Most of this has been done on my 3.06 GHz i3-based 21.5″ Mid 2010 iMac with 12 GB RAM running Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan, but I have also run VirtualBox and Andy on my 2.0 GHz Core Duo 13.3″ Late 2008 Aluminum MacBook with 12 GB RAM and El Capitan. The MacBook is quite a bit slower with Andy than the i3-based iMac.

Installing Andy

First of all, if you’ve installed Andy, VirtualBox, or Advanced Mac Cleaner in the past, put them in the Trash before running the installer for the current version. Sometimes the installer balks at previous versions.

When you install Andy on a Mac, it installs VirtualBox for you. It also offers to install Advanced Mac Cleaner and make Yahoo! your default search engine. I am leery of free utility apps that want to put themselves in your startup queue and come from unknown sources. And Yahoo! is about the worst search engine ever, so I skipped installing either of these.

Andy installs its own copy of VirtualBox (version 5.0.18 r106667), and I’ve learned the hard way that you don’t want to update it to the latest version. Andy will not be happy if you do. Once everything is installed, double-click on Andy just to make sure it runs.

VirtualBox Settings

Once you know it runs, install whatever game or app you want to use with the Android emulator using the Google Play store and make sure that it runs acceptably. We’re going to tweak some settings to hopefully make Andy run a bit more smoothly, but if it’s unacceptably slow to begin with, don’t expect these adjustments to mean much.

Uninstall Virtualbox On Mac

Once you finish making your setting, quit VirtualBox, and then launch Andy, which will take care of restarting VirtualBox with your new settings.

Settings: General

Quit Andy – you can’t change most of the VirtualBox settings while virtualization is active – and then double-click the VirtualBox icon. Next click on the yellow Settings gear. The first option in Settings is General, with four tabs: Basic, Advanced, Description, and Encryption. Under Basic, leave the Type as Linux, and then the Version to Linux 2.6, etc. (32-bit or 64-bit).

I don’t change anything in the Advanced tab, but if you want a shared clipboard or Drag’N’Drop support, this is where you would activate it. Description lets you make notes for yourself, and Encryption is probably best avoided, at least for now.

Settings: System

The System section has three tabs: Motherboard, Processor, and Acceleration. Unless RAM is really at a premium in your Mac, I suggest you boost it from the stock 1280 MB to 2048 MB or beyond. It can’t hurt and may improve performance. Some suggest setting it at 4096 MB* if you have enough system memory. In the Boot Order section, you can turn off Optical unless you might be booting Linux or something else from a CD or DVD.

* Andy is a 32-bit app and can only use up to 3,072 MB of RAM.

I have fiddled with the Chipset and Pointing Device settings, but nowadays I just leave them at default. I do the same with the Extended Features.

The Processor tab lets you determine how many cores VirtualBox assigns to your virtualized operating system. My Intel Macs are all dual-core, so I let VirtualBox use both of them. You can also set an Execution Cap, which will prevent the virtualized OS from totally taking over your Mac. I usually set that at 90% on my older, slower MacBook and 95% on the iMac. That allows background tasks enough elbow room to run without cutting into your Android emulation significantly. “Enable PAE/NX” under Extended Features seems to be a Windows thing; you can ignore it unless you’re virtualizing Windows.

The third tab is Acceleration, and that’s the first one to really frustrate me. You have five acceleration options plus None. Based on your OS and hardware, VirtualBox should pick the best option for your system. Hardware Virtualization is only available on Intel Core i7 CPUs; if your Mac has an i7, click Enable Nested Paging for significantly faster paging.

Settings: Display

On my iMac, the default setting in Video Memory is 12 MB. Since I have 12 GB of RAM in this iMac, I boost this to 20-24 MB. It can’t hurt.

I don’t worry about multiple monitors or Scale Factor. For Andy, you probably don’t need to either. If your Mac has a Retina Display, enable HiDPI Support.

I have tried to Enable 3D Acceleration, but when I do, Andy never completes the boot process. If I try to Enable 2D Video Acceleration, VirtualBox warns me that this is an invalid setting.

There are tabs for Remote Display and Video Capture, neither of which I have had a reason to try.

Settings: The Rest

I just leave these as is.

How Well Does It Work?

Virtualbox Android Mac Download

Andy runs an x86 version of Android, and it seems to run apps correctly. It’s not particularly fast on my 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook, but an adequate performer on the 3.06 i3-based iMac.

One huge plus is that you get to use your Mac’s keyboard for text input. I learned to touch-type in high school, so this is much faster than the on-screen keyboard. Also, the mouse cursor gives you more precise control than your finger on an Android phone or tablet.

But there are drawbacks, things that you can’t do like zooming in and out, multi-finger gestures, and other things that are so easy with a touch interface. I don’t find Clash of Clans practical on my iMac, although it does look much nicer on Andy than on my 4″ iPhone SE.

Update: You can zoom in and out by holding down the Option key and holding down the mouse button (left button on a non-Apple mouse).

Is It Worth It?

Until I figured out how to use BlueStacks, which is billed as an app player and not a full-fledged Android environment, I found Andy had some benefits over my iPhone or my 7″ Android Fire, mostly in the resolution department. It works, but it is slow and has some touch-based limitations not present in a real Android device.

keywords: #andyroid #androidemulation

short link: https://goo.gl/RLWfVg