Unable to run intel based apps from external drive (through Rosetta)

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Unable to run intel based apps from external drive (through Rosetta)

I wanted to use an external drive to run my games and large apps so that I could free up more storage on my Mac. First, I moved some games that are natively compatible with Apple Silicon, like Resident Evil Village, and they work perfectly. However, when I tried moving games that run through Rosetta, like Cities Skylines and Subnautica, they wouldn't start. Instead, they kept bouncing in the dock, and after a while, they stopped bouncing. When I right-clicked, it only gave me the option to force quit the app. I tried waiting, but nothing seemed to happen.

I am using an SSD formatted as APFS, which has really good speeds and is brand new, so the SSD shouldn't be the problem. Currently, I am running macOS 13.4.

If anyone has a solution to this issue, please share it with me because I really need to free up some space on my Mac. 😊

MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)

Posted on Jun 11, 2023 6:12 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 11, 2023 6:30 AM in response to mabuxy

This is not a Rosetta issue. Mac executables are an Important security issue. You can not just leave them lying about where they could be modified.

You can not run Apps under MacOS 11 Big Sur or later unless/until they have been added to the /Applications folder. This folder is inside the locked, checksummed, unmodifiable Signed Virtual System Volume. x86 Apps in particular, may need to be translated while they are running. Their binary files need to be augmented with translated code on-the-fly by Rosetta.

if you previously added Apple-Silicon Native apps to the /Applications folder, they might be able to run if you move them. But that is a Bad Idea™.

In general, apps have always executed faster and been more reliable when executed from the system folder. Now it is required.

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Unable to run intel based apps from external drive (through Rosetta)

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