Make sure you have plenty of free hard disk space (a basic 10.12.6 install is about ~20GB before your own applications and you'll need at least twice that if you need to clone it for multiple installations), plus you need ~6GB for Parallels to create a bootable disk image file from the installer, so we recommend at least 75GB of free space (100GB+ if you're looking to virtualise and use Adobe Creative Suite).On later versions of macOS your preferred virtualisation software will require specifically allowing their System Extension(s) to run via System Preferences > Security & Privacy, plus they may require to be granted access to Accessibility.Purchase/install/update your preferred virtualisation software.If you haven't already, make a backup/archive of the macOS 10.12 Sierra installer e.g.You may still be able to download macOS 10.12 Sierra for free from Apple.If you purchased macOS 10.12 Sierra you might be able to re-download the installer - go to Macintosh HD > Applications > App Store > Purchased tab at the top > login if necessary > check your purchase history list to download Mountain Lion.

If you already have this installer archived/backed up you are good to go.

Obtain the macOS 10.12 Sierra installer and copy it to your local Desktop/hard disk:.

Obtain your preferred virtualisation software (see list above).

Preparation NOTE: You will need a Mac and the macOS 10.12 Sierra installer. NOTE: This document was written using a Mac mini (2014 model) with macOS 10.14 Mojave running in 64-bit only test mode and using Parallels Desktop 14.1.2, VMWare Fusion 11.0.2 and VirtualBox 6.0.4. If you would like to transfer an existing Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 to a virtual machine, or take a Mac OS X 10.6 bootable storage device/clone/disk image and convert it into a virtual machine please see this article instead. This article deals with setting up/installing a virtual machine with Mac OS X 10.6 clean/from scratch. MacStrategy presents this special guide to virtualising Mac OS X / OS X / macOS. The ability to virtualise macOS 10.12 Sierra is important and very useful as it is an easy way to run 32-bit applications that do not run on macOS 10.15 or later. Instructions for installing, setting up and virtualising macOS 10.12 Sierra Virtualising macOS 10.12 Sierra Virtualising macOS 10.12 Sierra Article ID = 168Īrticle Title = Virtualising macOS 10.12 Sierra

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