How to use Intel app despite support for Intel-based apps soon being discontinued by Apple

I use Parallels Desktop Pro (26.4) as the VM on my M4 Mac Mini Pro running Tahoe 26.5.2. I have Monterey, Sonoma, and Sequoia guests stored on a 2TB OWC Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 drive. The real annoyance with these guests is that one simply cannot sign into iCloud, or the Mac App Store as this feature is non-functional in these guests. Was supposed to work in Sequoia, but does not. The correct password results in an unknown error. System Software updates work fine. Parallel's runs me $120+ per year. Best of the VMs in my opinion, even with the Apple ID limitation.

I removed the free VMware Fusion 26 software from the above Mac because Parallels is more functional. VMware Fusion 26 is installed on my 2020 27-in iMac with Mojave, Windows 11 Pro, and OpenIndiana (Solaris 11) guests. VMWare Fusion 26 does not have additional tools one can install to improve the guest screen size, so full screen works fine with Windows 11 Pro, but not in the other two guests, even when configured for full screen view.

Although VirtrualBox is free, it is the least capable of the Virtual Machines, in my own opinion, and you can thank Oracle for that. I used it for years and then entirely removed it for Parallels when VirtualBox fell way behind.

I have the current UTM installed, but no macOS guests configured at this time. It is important to read their online documentation for strengths, and weaknesses.

There is no law that says you must upgrade to macOS 28. Stay where you are if Intel apps are that important to you. Eventually you will reach the end of the road for bug and security patches. Apps like Safari will eventually start to fall behind. Eventually developers will stop coding universal binaries that run on Intel CPU Macs.

By the way, depending on software that is no longer supported by the developer is not exactly is not the best way to run a business, if that's what you are doing.

Tom-Evans wrote:

Thanks, Viking.

What about the feasibility of me using one of my old Imacs with an old OS to run Topaz Clean 3 from Photoshop, and transferring images between that old Mac and my newer Mac Studio?

Tom

My advice is usually to find some way to live without the unsupported legacy software, as it becomes a never ending battle and frustration as time goes on.

That said, the price difference between the obsolete Topaz Clean 3 and the current subscription for Topaz Studio is pretty dramatic.

I am writing this on a 2015 iMac that runs Monterey, its latest MacOS version. It is more than 10 years old and doing pretty well (I did replace its original HDD with an SSD several years ago). We also have a 2013 MacBook Air (Big Sur) that had its battery and SSD replaced several years ago and still runs well, albeit fairly slow compared to modern Macs.

My point being that if you obtained the latest new Mac that will run Tahoe 26, presumably you too could stay with it for 10+ years just to be able to run Topaz Clean 3.

So I think it is doable. But I am starting to find some web sites that don't fully operate properly under Monterey on that 2015 iMac, including a portion of the Topaz web site!

Perhaps that doesn't matter to you, but you will have to keep Photoshop running on your "old Mac" so I don't know whether you subscribe to Adobe's photography package via Adobe cc but Adobe stops supporting older MacOS versions after 3-5 years, I believe. Maybe you have a standalone version of Adobe Photoshop that you can use forever, I don't know.

My daughter has a small photography business and she is a heavy user of Photoshop and Lightroom. After some initial resistance, she has decided to stay current with her computer (which is a Mac, now a new MacBook Pro M4 acquired in Dec 2025), its OS, and all software she depends on. In at least one instance, her "lifetime license" for a tool she uses to pre-process image files turned out to be a mirage because they stopped doing updates to it, and it won't run under Tahoe; the new version that does run is ... subscription based. After steaming about that for about a year, I think she has decided to go with the subscription for that one tool in the future, despite being angry about the bait and switch. There are higher costs but she builds that into her pricing.

Maybe you can get about ten more years on a legacy Mac to keep using Topaz Clean 3. But you will need to keep that Mac running and keep Photoshop operating on it. It helps to have a good Mac repair shop you can trust nearby. We have an Apple Authorized Service Provider in the neighborhood and they are willing to work on older Macs that the Apple Store won't touch. That is where I got our 2015 iMac and 2013 MacBook Air refurbished. They had me buy the parts (replacement battery, SSD etc.) and bring them in and they did the work, I paid them for their labor. Unlike the Apple Store, the customers can talk directly with the technicians doing the work.

Let us know how you'd decide to proceed. There is no rush at this time but you should have a long term plan.

Tom-Evans wrote:

This is why I wanted to install Vmware now to test if I can run Vmware Fusion now.

there're alternatives ...check compatibility here:

Parallels Desktop https://www.parallels.com/p

Virtual box https://www.virtualbox.org/

UTM https://mac.getutm.app/

Tom-Evans wrote:

Thanks, Steve.

Which plan is better: Running Topaz Clean 3 through Photoshop on one of my two, old iMacs, or running Clean 3 through Photoshop from within Parallels Desktop within my M4 Mac Studio?

If the Topaz Clean 3 capabilities are really important to you (it sounds like they are), I think I would try to utilize both approaches. Using the old iMacs will likely work fine ... until their hardware simply wears out and it becomes very hard (or impossible) to keep them going. Then you can revert to plan B which would use a virtual machine on your M4. That seems likely to be viable for a longer period of time (although as I mentioned, I have a 2013 MacBook Air that is still running well, who can predict when a very old Mac will stop working).

However the virtual machine approach may also stop working, as others have noted, because as time goes on, new versions of MacOS could appear that do not support that specific virtual machine arrangement, for any number of reasons. You are also then dependent on the virtual machine software, similar to your dependency on Topaz Clean 3. Using legacy, eventually obsolete stuff does not seem like the way to go, in my opinion, but it might be the way you choose to move forward.

You wrote that the price difference between the obsolete Topaz Clean 3 and the current subscription for Topaz Studio is dramatic. Price is not the issue. The issue is that Clean 3 is an important tool that's benefited me immeasurably for several years, and it's going to be taken away from me.

I misunderstood because I had thought that Topaz Studio would enable you to do what you had been using Topaz Clean 3 for. It seems that is not the case.

I'm not the only person in this situation. Another Topaz customer, who read on the Topaz site what I had written there, emailed me to ask if I had managed to get Clean 3 to work in Big Sur OS, because he, too recognizes Clean 3's unique quality, and he was anxious about losing the ability to run Clean 3 after Topaz announced it wouldn't update or technically support Clean 3 anymore. The Topaz Web site states that a number of it's customers had asked about this issue and that some of them hadn't found a satisfactory replacement.

These companies are making a business decision. They probably don't have enough users or revenue from Topaz Clean 3 to make it worthwhile for them to continue it, which requires software engineering, maintenance, etc. It sounds like you are also running a business and no doubt have to make business decisions as well.

Since I don't understand what Topaz Clean 3 is really important for and used for, I can't speak to its uniqueness or irreplaceability. But I feel that there should be alternatives to any and every Photoshop extension tool. It's a huge user community. And there are alternatives to even Photoshop itself. Have you FULLY explored other options? I suspect you have but thought I would prod you in that direction just in case. Change from what one is used to is often uncomfortable but are there really no other options? My daughter in her photography business is a very heavy user of Photoshop and Lightroom and other assorted extensions to those programs, and every time she has become distraught over some change in these commercial products that will disrupt her workflow, she has been spurred to come up with a new process that has resulted in even better product quality for her customer deliveries. This may not be possible for your situation, but it is always healthy to reexamine everything from time to time.

That issue is nearly a year and a half away yet. For people using Macs with Intel CPUs, that problem is this fall as macOS 27 will drop all support for Intel based hardware.

Even when we reach macOS 28, you could still install the free version of VMware, then install a previous version of macOS and your Intel based software within that.

Apologies if this has been mentioned but I haven't had time to read through 3 pages of replies.

Occasionally when I want to test a new macOS without committing myself I create a New Volume (using Disk Utility) on which to do the install.

You then have 2 operating systems on the same drive and use the Mac in dual-boot mode.

I don't know whether this technique would work with a "previous" macOS but it may be worth trying.

Do you mean VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation from VMware.com?

That would be the Mac version, VMware Fusion. And just because they seem to like confusing users, you can't get VMware from vmware.com. And they keep changing this. Start on this page:

https://www.broadcom.com/

Click the Support Portal > Register buttons to create a Broadcom account.

Then, believe it or not, go back to the VMware site on this specific page:

https://www.vmware.com/products/desktop-hypervishttps://www.broadcom.com/

Click the DOWNLOAD NOW button. That will take you back to this Broadcom page:

https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/downloads

The link directly above may not work since I was already logged in. But you'll see this once you have a Broadcom account and are logged in. Click the HERE button:

Next page, click VMware Fusion in the right column.

Next page, current release is 26H1. Click that to expand the heading, and then the 26H1 link.

Still not done. Then you have to click on the Terms and Conditions link before the check box will activate that you read them.

When you've done that, then you can click the download cloud icon at the right.

And, still not done. You'll be asked to verify information; name, address and other required boxes. I put NA in the Company field. After clicking Submit, it will go back to the download page you came from. This time, the cloud icon will actually download VMware.

No idea why they made this so difficult.

Running on an M series Mac, don't even think about trying to install an older Intel only based OS, such as Snow Leopard. You can't do it in VMware. Native ARM only.

Since the Topaz Clean 3 app runs in Tahoe, you may as well use Terminal to download the full installer now to use with VMware. Copy/paste this into Terminal.

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 26.5.2

It will be a large download, so it may take a while. Terminal will say Installing with a percentage done. It's not really installing. It's collecting data for the Install macOS Tahoe installer that will end up in the Applications folder. Save that installer to an external drive.

You have to use Terminal because unlike other, more recent older versions of macOS, you cannot get Tahoe through the App Store.

You could also wait until macOS 27 and save that installer since Intel apps will still be supported on M series Macs.

VMware Fusion on Apple Silicon does not support or run any version of macOS in a virtual machine. So with my new MacBook Pro M5 I no longer can create macOS VM, only Windows and Linux ARM VMs.

Well, that's a new one on me. I've installed macOS in VMware in the past, but the last time I did that was on an Intel based 2018 mini. Looking it up, installing macOS in VMware does work on Intel based Macs, but not on any M series Macs, as you stated. Learn somethin' new every day!

Since I have UTM installed to run Windows XP, I tried installing macOS on my M4 Pro mini. It couldn't be any easier, especially if you just let UTM download the latest .ipsw version of macOS file directly from Apple's servers. If you need or want an older OS, you need to find an .ipsw file on your own. I dug up one for Sonoma just to try it.

So, Tom-Evans, follow the link leroydouglas provided to download the free UTM virtual machine app. You can get it in the App Store, but it costs $10 there. It's no different from getting it for free directly on their site. You're really just paying a $10 donation fee.

Moving files between the VM and your normal macOS environment is as simple as turning Sharing on in one OS or the other.

Tom-Evans wrote:

How can I continue to use an Intel-based program through Photoshop, considering that in upcoming OS 28, which will be Silicon-based, won't work with Intel-based programs.

I depend on a particular computer program which is Intel-based, which the developer no longer provides support for, and which therefore won't run on the upcoming Silicon-based Mac OS 28.

re: program through Photoshop...

If no update available to make the app compatible...

find an alternative app that will work.

If you name the mystery "program" here, I am sure someone can supply some alternatives(?)

There is an option you can use. Create a dual boot system.

If you have sufficient space on your internal drive, you can split it, install current Tahoe on it, then install Photoshop and your plugin on it and then just leave it as is and only update/upgrade your main macOS. This eliminates any worries of performance hits via virtualization and any other pitfalls related to it.

If you don't have sufficient space on the internal, then you can do the current macOS install on an external SSD. You can then use your plugin until your Mac itself is no longer usable. At that point, you will definitely need to find an alternative as whatever Mac that may be, it certainly won't support any older macOS.

I had done this in the past for no longer supported software.

One last note, many app vendors are starting to only support macOS compatibility with only those versions of macOS that Apple is supporting. It does not necessarily mean that those apps won't work with older OSes, but there are no guarantees.

Tom-Evans wrote:

Thanks, Leroy.

The computer program is Topaz Clean 3.

I haven't been able to find a good alternative.

If you check out the TopazLabs website you would find that the "Clean" program is considered legacy & its features incorporated into the "Studio" program. See the information in the following article:

https://docs.topazlabs.com/other-apps/legacy

Tom-Evans wrote:

The computer program is Topaz Clean 3.

I haven't been able to find a good alternative.

Topaz considers "Clean" to be a legacy application. They also say on their Legacy Applications page that "Topaz Studio 2 has incorporated functionality from [various things, including Clean]." Unfortunately, It seems that this Topaz Studio is a subscription (rental) product that costs $69 – $75 USD per month. (Topaz Clean seems to have been a one-time-purchase program that cost $30.)

Topaz Labs – Legacy Applications

Matti Haveri wrote:

VMware Fusion on Apple Silicon does not support or run any version of macOS in a virtual machine.

That is surprising – but it is the word from the horse's mouth.

Broadcom TechDocs – Creating a macOS Virtual Machine in Fusion Pro

"Virtual machines running macOS are supported on Apple hardware with Intel-based processors only."

The version of Parallels Desktop 26 available on the developer's site can run Monterey through Tahoe in VMs on Apple Silicon Macs. I do not know why Big Sur is excluded from the list.

Parallels – Parallels Desktop for Mac System Requirements