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VirtualBox for Mac

VirtualBox for Mac

  -  143 MB  -  Open Source
  • Latest Version

    VirtualBox 7.2.0 Build 170228 LATEST

  • Review by

    Daniel Leblanc

  • Operating System

    Mac OS X

  • User Rating

    Click to vote
  • Author / Product

    Oracle / External Link

  • Filename

    VirtualBox-7.2.0-170228-OSX.dmg

The world’s most popular cross-platform virtualization software enables you to run multiple operating systems on your Mac, PC, Linux, or Oracle Solaris machine. 

Oracle VM VirtualBox for Mac is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 and AMD64/Intel64 hardware, targeted at server, desktop and embedded use.

Not only is the tool an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software.

Some of the new features of Oracle VM VirtualBox are:

Paravirtualization support for modern Windows and Linux guests
Oracle VM VirtualBox for macOS is able to expose a paravirtualization interface to facilitate accurate and efficient execution of software. Once the virtual machine platform is defined, the app improves guest OS performances by leveraging built-in virtualization support (KVM on Linux guests and Hyper-V on Windows guests).

xHCI controller to support USB 3.0 devices
Guest operating systems are now able to directly recognize USB 3.0 devices and operate at full 3.0 speeds. Guest can now be configured to use USB 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 devices.

Improved Drag & Drop support
Starting from the app improved the support of a bi-directional drag&drop between guest and host operating system; drag and drop support is available with latest guest-additions installed.

Disk image encryption
The software allows for encrypted virtual disk images by leveraging AES algorithm in XTS mode (128-bit or 256-bit); since the DEK is stored as part of the virtual machine configuration file, encryption introduces a further security feature that will ask for a password while starting the virtual machine.

Headless and Detachable start options
Oracle VM Virtual Box now supports starting virtual machines in the background with a separate front-end process that can be closed while the virtual machine continues to work.

How to Use
  • Install VirtualBox on your Mac
  • Download the desired guest OS ISO file
  • Create a new virtual machine in VirtualBox
  • Assign memory and virtual hard disk size
  • Select and mount the guest OS ISO
  • Start the virtual machine and install OS
  • Install VirtualBox Guest Additions
  • Adjust settings like display, network, etc.
  • Start using your virtual OS environment
System Requirements
  • macOS 12 (Monterey) or later
  • 64-bit Intel or Apple Silicon with Rosetta 2
  • At least 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
  • Minimum 10GB free disk space
  • Administrative access to install software
PROS
  • Free and open-source virtualization tool
  • Supports wide range of guest OS
  • Snapshot feature for easy backups
  • Cross-platform compatibility
  • Active community and regular updates
CONS
  • Lower performance vs native apps
  • Limited 3D graphics support
  • May require manual setup tweaks
  • USB device passthrough can be tricky
  • Interface not as polished as rivals
Also Available: Download VirtualBox for Windows

Why is this app published on FileHorse? (More info)
  • VirtualBox 7.2.0 Build 170228 Screenshots

    The images below have been resized. Click on them to view the screenshots in full size.

    VirtualBox 7.2.0 Build 170228 Screenshot 1
  • VirtualBox 7.2.0 Build 170228 Screenshot 2
  • VirtualBox 7.2.0 Build 170228 Screenshot 3
  • VirtualBox 7.2.0 Build 170228 Screenshot 4

What's new in this version:

This is a major update. The following new features were added:
- GUI: Moved global and VM tools from hamburger menus to global tools taskbar (vertically on the left) and the VM tools tabs (horizontally above the right hand panel) to make them easier to reach
- Windows/Arm host: Arm virtualization of VMs added, in the unified Windows installer package
- Arm host: Virtualization of Windows 11/Arm VMs
- Linux host: Video decoding acceleration when 3D is enabled
- Windows/Arm guest: Guest additions for new OS type Windows 11/Arm
- macOS Arm host: Experimental 3D acceleration support using DXMT, removing the previous non working solution using DXVK on top of MoltenVK. 3D acceleration is not supported on macOS hosts using Intel CPUs anymore.
- Storage: The NVMe storage controller emulation is now part of the open source base package

In addition, the following items were fixed or added:
- Arm VMs: Note that the saved state of Arm VMs from VirtualBox 7.1 is incompatible with VirtualBox 7.2, so please shut down such VMs in saved state before upgrading to 7.2 (snapshots with associated saved state created with 7.1 will no longer work with 7.2)
- VMM: Improved x86_64 and Arm CPU feature reporting when using Windows Hyper-V as the virtualization engine
- VMM: Added xsave/xrestor instruction handling when using Windows/x86_64 Hyper-V as the virtualization engine, offering the x86_64-v3 instruction set extensions (including AVX and AVX2) on recent CPUs
- VMM: Fixed issue when X86_64-v3 features were not passed to the guest (​github:gh-36)
- VMM/HM: Fixed Nested Virtualization feature on Intel CPUs
- GUI: Fixed a bug in clone VM wizard which made impossible to include snapshots in clone result (​github:GH-59)
- GUI: Polished Preferences and Settings pages, NLS fixing
- GUI: Improved handling of keyboard LEDs in the Soft Keyboard
- GUI: Added checkbox for making a Shared Folder global to all VMs
- GUI: Removed IO-APIC from Arm VM settings
- Graphics: Avoid assertion when guest tries to use VMSVGA 3D functions when the feature is disabled
- Audio: Fixed crash in rare circumstances (​github:gh-72)
- NAT: Multiple fixes and improvements, for example better DNS server handling, saving of the VM settings and generating a boot file name which stays within the length limit
- NAT Network: Use the (almost) same code as for NAT, unifying behavior and features
- NAT: Fixed possible crash in rare circumstances when no nameservers could be detected in the host system
- Storage: Fixed corruption of VMDK images when resizing
- Video Recording: Fixed frame synchronization, a small memory leak and other bugs
- TPM: Fixed save state load failures
- Arm VMs: ACPI now available
- API/Unattended: Added explicit unattended installation support for Oracle Linux 10
- API and VBoxManage: Added functionality to define global Shared Folders for all VMs
- API: Fixed issue when OVF/OVA import resulted in a broken VM on Arm (bug #22370)
- API: Fixed issue when exporting a VM which had an inaccessible disk resulted in crash
- VBoxManage: Document currently unavailable NAT options
- Linux host and guest: Initial support for kernel version 6.16
- Linux/Solaris host: Fixed swapped scan code for Pause and Num Lock keys in the table used when relying on Xkb for translation
- Windows host: Removed release assertion causing crash of VBoxUsbMon driver if unloading fails
- Arm host: vboxwebsrv is now included in the packages
- Linux host and guest: Introduced initial support for kernel 6.17
- Linux guest: Fixed handling of (long optional) vboxvideo kernel module in init script
- Linux guest: Fixed start failure of VBoxClient with kernel from the 2.6 series or older
- Windows/Arm guest: Added WDDM Graphics driver, with 2D and 3D mode
- Windows/Arm guest: Added Shared Folder feature
- Windows Host: Added improvements in Windows drivers installation
- Linux Guest Additions: Fixed issue when autorun installer was not automatically starting on Additions ISO image insert for Oracle Linux 10 and RHEL 10 guests
- BIOS: Fixed keyboard translation, added and updated several entries and do not report keypresses when scan code and ASCII code are both zero
- BIOS: Fixed error reporting fo single sided floppy disks
- UEFI: Added workaround for Grub bug causing guest OS crashes
- UEFI: Fixed macOS kernel logging over serial port (​github:gh-82)
- 3rd Party Tools: Eliminated build time dependency on libIDL and IASL