If you need to install Rosetta on your Mac - Apple Support (CA) (2024)

FAQs

Is it necessary to install Rosetta on Mac? ›

If the kind is Application (Intel), the app needs Rosetta to work on a Mac with Apple silicon. If the kind is Application (Universal), the app doesn't need Rosetta, because it supports both Apple silicon and Intel processors.

Rosetta I was around from OS X 10.4 to OS X 10.6, and was removed in OS X 10.7. If you want to continue to run old Intel apps for the foreseeable future, you will need to make your own accommodations with older Intel hardware and with older macOS versions.

Rosetta is a translation process that allows users to run apps that contain x86_64 instructions on Apple silicon. Rosetta is meant to ease the transition to Apple silicon, giving you time to create a universal binary for your app.

The main drawbacks to using Rosetta are performance and efficiency. ARM code runs faster, and uses less Energy. Are there no apps for which the ARM version behaves even slightly differently from the Intel one? (For example, the ARM version of HomeBrew defaults to a completely different installation directory.)

How to make sure Rosetta 2 is installed. Rosetta 2 isn't automatically included with a standard macOS installation, so you'll have to install separately.

Rosetta is freely available for academic and non-commercial purposes, under license. Separate commercial use licenses are also availible.

The key thing to remember is that Rosetta is a temporary solution. Apple introduced the technology to give developers time to build Universal binaries for their apps. It will become obsolete once those developers have all released versions of their apps that work on Apple silicon.

What is the oldest Mac that still updates? ›

In the Mac help section, it says that you can check if a program is currently set to run in Rosetta by clicking on that program's icon, then selecting 'Get Info' from the file menu, and then see the 'Open using Rosetta' check box in the General pane of the info window.

Rosetta merely allows Apps written for Intel CPUs to run on the new Macs with the M1 CPUs. Rosetta is an Apple framework that allows Apps not written for the new M1 CPUs to be translated to code the M1 understands and can run. Its made by Apple, and should not affect your Mac in any way. Its perfectly safe.

Navigate to /Library/Apple/usr/lib/libRosettaAot. dylib, right-click on it and choose Move to Trash. Enter your password and press OK. Navigate to /Library/Apple/usr/libexec and /Library/Apple/usr/share/rosetta, delete these two folders as well.

I built Rosetta on a linux machine and it takes up 24G of space.

One way to enable or disable Rosetta for an application is using the standard macOS method, which involves switching the “Open in Rosetta” option in the Get Info window for an application in macOS Finder. This opens the application in Rosetta until you switch that option again.