How do I use parallels desktop on a Mac completely blind?

By Blind soft, 29 May, 2026

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello everyone. I am writing to regard macOS app, parallel’s desktop. In my experience with it, it is kind of inaccessible. I was wondering if you could give me any tips to make my experience even better. I am fully blind with a MacBook Pro with M5 chip.

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By Igna Triay on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 18:09

You'll need vo ocr to press the buttons to instal the vm. Parallels will download and make the virtual machine automatically, it will power it on by itself, and then you’ll be good to go.

By Blind soft on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 19:13

First of all, I would like to say about dictation. In the subject, it is supposed to be called, VOCR, not VOR. And second, I do not think that VOCR can even click on buttons. It is for OCR, not accessible app that makes things accessible.

By Blind soft on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 19:14

First of all, I would like to say about dictation. In the subject, it is supposed to be called, VOCR, not VOR. And second, I do not think that VOCR can even click on buttons. It is for OCR, not accessible app that makes things accessible.

By Igna Triay on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 19:18

First off, it was not dictation. The program's name is vocr. However, I wrote it separately, VO Ocr. Same thing.
Secondly, As for the buttons, yes, you yourself have to press on the buttons, it obviously won't do it for you. What did you think it was; AI to do it for you? Maybe I should've been clear with that part, though I don't see how that needed clarification but anyway.
As far as how to do it? When your in parallels and vo ocr is running, you scan the screen, and click on get windows 11, then continue. Then install windows. That's it. Then just, wait. If you want to see the progress, you can ocr the screen again, but when its done you'll be placed on window's desktop.

By Blind soft on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 19:29

The only reason why I was saying that is because there is an app on get called VOCR, but allows you to scan the screen and see the contents. I mean get hub.

By Igna Triay on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 19:34

Its by, and i'm probably buchering the name but, ki kim, i think? Its this one,
https://github.com/chigkim/VOCR
If that's the one you where seeing that's the one.
Also, they recently added a function where you can essentially add a API key for artificial intelligence, and ask the artificial intelligence to perform tasks, I haven’t tested it yet, but there’s that way, if you want to do it where it clicks buttons for you etc.

By Igna Triay on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 19:45

You have to have vocr running and your screen curtain turned off. To scan the screen its, control command shift w. You'll hear a sound, followed by voiceover announcing finished, meaning the screen is scanned.
To move through the scan, its control command and arrow keys, up moves up, down moves down left and right move left and right like word by word as an example.
Press control command down ur up arrow until you hear install windows. Click on that by pressing control option shift space, or caps lock shift space if you have caps lock as your voiceover modifier. Then go until you hear the continue button, and control option shift space on it. Then go until you hear install windows and control option shift space on that, if you see something like downloading x percent cancel pause, you got it, just wait for it to do its thing, you'll eventually be put on windows desktop.
As a tip, in vocr settings in the menubar, enable autoscan that way once you click on something it'll rescan screen automatically and you can just go through the scan.

By TheBlindGuy07 on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 21:57

cmd shift ctrl r. Very helpful for this kind of progress bar, I mean its support and integration on both systems for windows.
There was a hot debate about the morality for blind people to pay for parallels, but it's up to everyone to choose. I love opensource and the utm ui as much as everybody else but I find that parallels currently fulfills all my needs, plus it's officially backed by microslop, whatever this is worth nowadays.