Unable to install Virtual box on my MacBook Pro

Hi ,

My Mac book config is : chip: Apple M2 Pro , memory - 16 GB, macOS : Ventura 13.5.2.

I am trying to install VirtualBox on my Mac. but getting the following error:

"The installer has detected an unsupported architecture. VirtualBox only runs on the amd64 architecture."

How do I resolve this?

Thank you in advance .


Posted on Sep 21, 2023 03:02 AM

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Posted on Sep 21, 2023 04:57 AM

I never got VB to install on any Mac.


I switched to VMWare Fusion free and have had excellent performance as well as easy installations. Currently running four Windows 10 installations without problems.


All our Mac are Intel though.

3 replies

Sep 21, 2023 07:19 AM in response to minal100

VirtualBox 6.1.46 is supported through the end of the year and runs x86 architecture.


In their newer versions, 7.0.8 is labeled as a Beta version, is said to have some preliminary support for Apple-Silicon architecture, but I could not get it to boot up a MacOS 10.6 guest from CD, or carry forward a Mac-guest 10.6 virtual machine created previously. They started to boot up, then just stopped responding, no error messages.


version 7.0.10 has all pretense of Apple-silicon support removed.

Sep 21, 2023 06:26 AM in response to minal100

Oracle has not released VirtualBox for Apple Silicon hardware. The VM will detect this and quit.


You resolve it by waiting for Oracle to release VB for Apple Silicon, or you subscribe to Apple Silicon versions of Parallels' Desktop 18, or VMware to run ARM64 only guests on your M2 Pro. That means macOS Big Sur or later, or ARM versions of Linux or Windows. I pay $120USD per year for a Parallels Desktop Pro subscription and vastly prefer it to any prior VirtualBox solution.


I have a 27-in 2020 Core i7 iMac in the other room with 40GB RAM and a 1 TB internal drive. I purchased a Crucial X8 1TB SSD (1050 MB/s) that is plugged into my Thunderbolt 3 port, and on which I store all of my Parallel's Desktop guests. If I want to access the virtual machine from my M2 Mac mini Pro, I power on the iMac, and walk back to the M2 mini and use Screen Sharing to display the iMac on my 32-in LG 4K display. Since everything is on a Wi-Fi 6 LAN, I can view the Parallels VM guests on the M2 mini via screen share with quite acceptable performance.


There is also UTM, a VM product that will run on your M2 Pro that can host X86_64 operating systems via (quite slow) emulation and with less features than the aforementioned commercial VM products.



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Unable to install Virtual box on my MacBook Pro

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