How to play 32-bit games on Mac Catalina

To make sure that a game is compatible with your macOS, we recommend trying out a free trial version of the game before purchasing it.

For more information about how to download a free trial version of a game, make sure to visit our Download a Trial Game help article.

Please note that if the trial version of a game doesn't run, the full game won't run either.

How can I know if my apps are 32-bit?

Apple is notifying customers when they are using an app based on 32-bit technology. This is done via a one-time alert that appears when you launch a 32-bit app.

When I first bought my mac book air earlier this year I was so happy and excited as this was my first Apple PC. I haven’t had a computer in years and was so ready to finally do some kind of PC gaming. I bet you’re asking, “ Why would you buy MacBook Air for gaming?!”. Well, the answer to that is because I bought it for my first coding boot camp. The gaming was just a little bonus for me, so I thought. I get home and the first thing I do is download Steam for macOS. I finish downloading and see that none of my 50 plus games is supported by Catalina because they are 32-bit! Apparently Apple decided to stop supporting 32-bit apps with its new macOS. The disappointment that came down on me. Luckily I came across a few ways on bypassing this problem to be able to play these 32-bit game or apps!

The first solution is using BootCamp to switch between macOS and windows. You will need a copy of Windows 10 64-bit and check to make sure that your macOS is up to date. After that, you will need to launch Boot Camp Assistant, which is included in your mac, and follow the on-screen instructions. Launching this will split your hard drive into 2 partitions, one for your macOS and one for your Windows. Bootcamp will ask you to choose the sizes of the partition, apple recommends to have a minimum of 64Gb of free space for windows and a recommended 128 Gb of free space in order to get the best experience. Depending on how you acquired your Windows you will either have to plug in the USB that has your copy or download a Window disk image if from the Microsoft website if you have a product key. Once finished, your Mac will restart to the Windows installer. If you are asked where to install Windows, select the BOOTCAMP partition and click Format. But most of the times it is automatically defaulted to that option. Before installing Windows make sure that any external devices that are not necessary are unplugged during installation. Then click Next and follow the onscreen instructions to begin installing Windows. After Windows is done installing, your Mac will start up in Windows and open a ”Welcome to the Boot Camp installer” window. Follow the on-screen instructions to install Boot Camp and Windows support software. Then you will have to restart when done. If the Boot Camp installer never opens, open the Boot Camp installer manually. And you're done! To switch between macOS and Windows, restart your computer then press and hold the Option (or Alt) ⌥ key during startup. The cons of this method is that a high amount of free disk space that is needed for this to be a good experience. The pros are that you will be able to run windows on your current mac!

The second solution is similar to the first but requires way less free disk space. For this, you would simply need to open up the Disk Utility app, which is also included in your mac and a maybe a USB flash drive depending on your computer default macOS. In the sidebar, select your existing APFS volume. Choose Edit > Add APFS Volume from the menu bar, or click + in the Disk Utility toolbar. These options are available only when an APFS volume is selected. Type any name for the new APFS volume, then click Add. Disk Utility should now show the new volume in the sidebar. The new volume will also appear in the Finder as if it were a separate disk. You can now quit Disk Utility. To install a released version of macOS, you can use macOS Recovery. The keys you press at startup determine which macOS is installed. Shift-Option-⌘-R will reinstall the macOS version that your computer originally came with. When the installer opens and you’re asked to choose where to install, click Show All Disks, then select the new volume. If your original macOS was already Catalina when you purchased your computer then you will have to create and use bootable installer for macOS with the macOS version you want. To do that you will first have to find the appropriate download link in the upgrade instructions for each macOS version on the apple website. macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, or macOS High Sierra
Installers for each of these macOS versions download directly to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS Catalina, Install macOS Mojave, or Install macOS High Sierra. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. After that connect the USB flash drive that you’re using for the bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended. Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is still in your Applications folder, and MyVolume is the name of the USB flash drive or other volume you’re using. If it has a different name, replace My Volume in these commands with the name of your volume.

Mojave:*

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

High Sierra:*

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

El Capitan:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

When asked input your administration password. It will also ask you to press Y to confirm that you want to erase the volume. When Terminal says that it’s done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Catalina. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume. Reboot your computer, hold down the Option key (⌥) before the Apple logo appears, choose the USB media (Mojave installer). Click “Reinstall macOS” once the “macOS Utilities” screen appears. Select the name for the new APFS volume you had created when asked where to install. Once the installation is finished, you can use the “Startup Disk” program to set you main Catalina installation as the default. When you want to boot Mojave, just restart the computer, hold ⌥, and select “Mojave”. And you're done!

This was definitely a workaround just to launch 32-bit games and applications. Hopefully, Apple makes their future macOS 32-bit compatible again so people don’t have to resort to these long workarounds!

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