Using Intel based apps on Apple silicon Macs

By Dave Nason, 17 March, 2025

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi all,
So I have just received my beautiful new M4 MacBook Air and have been getting it set up over the St Patrick's Day long weekend. As I'm upgrading from an Intel MacBook Air, it feels incredibly snappy so far. Very happy.
Two of my apps, Amadeus Pro (audio editor) and EyeClip (video editor) have apparently not been updated for Apple silicon Macs however. So when I try to open them, I'm told I need to download Rosetta to run them.
Is this a good idea? Or am I better off trying to find alternatives?
Cheers ☘️
Dave

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Comments

By techluver on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

Just let it download rosetta. It's a one time download then you're done. it's made by apple and will work with 99% of intel apps and just seemlessly do the conversion so you don't have to worry about it.
keep using the apps you love! if it ain't broke, don't fix it haha.
Rosetta was a lifesaver for me. enjoy the new mac!

By Chris on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

Rosetta is generally seamelss to the user. Once it's installed, opening applications should just work, though you may notice Intel applications launch a little slower. If you press Command-i on the application file, it will tell you if it's a universal, Intel, or Apple Silicon application. If it's a universal binary, you can also check a box to run it in Rosetta, although I'm not sure why you'd want to do this in most cases.
Unfortunately, there's not an easy way to uninstall Rosetta. I think your best bet for getting rid of it if you wish to do so is performing an erase all content and settings reset. Of course, Rosetta is probably going to go away at some point in the near future, just like it did in Lion. Apple doesn't maintain legacy tecnologies for long.

By Levi Gobin on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Intel apps work absolutely fine on my m1 mac book pro.
I don't even notice the app slow to launch or use.

By Missy Hoppe on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

For now, my 2011 macbook pro with bootcamp is still going strong, but I know that someday, I'll have to replace it. When that sad day comes, assuming they haven't developed a bootcamp equivelent for the new mac processors, would this Rosetta thing allow me to play games such as Manamon, Crazy Party and Super Egg hunt? Right now, I love my bootcamp system because web browsing and playing games is s till much easier in windows, but I've been using email on my mac more or less exclusively for a few years now. At this stage in my life, I just want things to work; don't have the skills or desire to fight with trying to set up a virtual machine, and there are no true techy folks in my immediate social circle, so I'll need to find alternatives that will work more or less right out of the box. Hopefully, I won't need to worry about this kind of thing for a while yet, but I feel obligated to at least try to make tentative plans for the future.

By Levi Gobin on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Rosetta Was initially used to allow people to run power PC apps on Intel based max. You can’t run non-mac software with Rosetta, you are limited to Mac software only.

By Tyler on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Rosetta is a technology that allows macOS apps compiled for the Intel architecture to run on Macs with Apple Silicon, not to run Windows apps on macOS. If you get a Mac with Apple Silicon in the future, your best bet will probably be to set up a windows virtual machine, assuming Boot Camp is not resurrected in some way. While there are several macOS apps that aim to enable Windows apps to run in a rapper instead of a full Windows installation, I have no experience with these types of apps, and thus can't comment on what kind of results you'll have with them.

By Dave Nason on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Thanks all, I’ll go for it so.
Dave

By Igna Triay on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 - 22:16

Actually, uninstalling rosetta is quite easy. You just need to disable sip, restart, go to the rosetta folders in the library and shared, delete said folders and your done.