Testing macOS betas with VirtualBuddy
Every time Apple announces a new macOS beta, I am tempted to somehow figure out how to install it alongside my daily operating system. I then realise it’s harder than I hoped, or that I don’t have a large enough external drive available, and then give up on the idea.
But a couple of features in Ventura got me excited enough that I wanted to try them ahead of release. So, I decided to invest a little more time this occasion and see what other options there were to test macOS betas. Apple never designed macOS to be particularly easy to install in virtual machines, but macOS has got significantly better at running virtual machines natively recently with features such as a new virtualization framework. I turned to my usual choice for creating virtual machines, Parallels Desktop, and while it does let you create macOS VMs, by default it only offers VMs with the current release of macOS. You could probably install that and then upgrade it to a beta, or install it via a disk image. But those options would take a reasonable amount of time, and anyway, if you don’t already own it, you have to buy Parallels.
Then I came across VirtualBuddy, which promises to solve this exact use case, installing macOS VMs alongside your main host OS. I can’t remember where I came across it, but it sounded perfect for an inquisitive dabbler like myself.
