How to install any iPhone or iPad app on a Mac M1

Apple’s Mac M1s, which are the first to be powered by an Arm-based chip designed by Apple, are capable of running iOS and iPadOS applications due to the common architecture between different operating systems.

Some iOS developers have updated their apps to make them compatible with macOS, but there are ways to download apps that haven’t been optimized and even apps that developers have prevented from being available on macOS. Watch our YouTube video for instructions or read the steps below.

Installing the iOS and iPadOS apps from the Mac App Store

In the Mac App Store, you can download many apps that you have already purchased on your iPhone or iPad.

1. Open the ‌Mac App Store‌.
2. Click on your profile at the bottom left of the app.
3. Under account, choose “Applications for iPhone and iPad”.
4. Next to any app on the list, click the download button.
5. The iOS app will be installed like any other Mac app and can be opened from the Launchpad or from the Applications folder.

Note that you can also search for ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ app names in ‌Mac App Store‌ and click on the “Apps ‌iPhone‌ & ‌iPad‌” tab under the results list to see the apps originally designed for iOS devices.

Some of the apps you see in “Mac App Store” are labeled with a warning that says “Not verified for macOS,” which means they are not optimized for use on a Mac.

Other apps that don’t have this wording have been verified by the developer and should work fine on a Mac M1, although the design isn’t perfect as it’s iOS first and not Mac first.

Installing apps not available through the Mac App Store

App developers can choose not to make their ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ apps available on Mac M1 through the ‌Mac App Store‌, and many popular apps such as Netflix, Hulu and others have made this choice. There is a workaround to install these apps anyway, but it involves third-party software.

It turns out that M1 Macs are capable of running any .ipa file, which is the format used for iOS apps. You need the .ipa file for an application to run it on an M1 Mac, and getting those files can be done through software like iMazing. iMazing is mainly used for iPhone‌ backups, but it also has functionality to download and save the .ipas app.

1. Download and launch iMazing.
2. Plug your ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌ into your Mac.
3. Select your device, then choose the Manage apps function.
4. Select Library, then you’ll see a list of all the apps you own.
5. Right click on an app and choose the Download option to download it to your library.
6. Right-click the same application again and choose Export .ipa option.
7. Choose an export destination such as the Applications folder.
8. In the Applications folder, click the application icon to install the application.

Apps installed this way are by no means optimized for Mac M1 and macOS and are designed for touchscreen devices, so expect to encounter bugs and glitches while using them. For the most part, iOS apps seem to work well on the Mac, even when not optimized.

If you plan to download and use apps like Hulu and Netflix, be aware that there is no option to put those apps in full screen mode to watch content, but there is an option to download content. for offline use, such as on an ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌.

In the future, we’ll likely have a lot more iOS apps that are also designed for Macs, but for now, these options provide ways to access and use your favorite iOS apps on Mac devices.

This post is not sponsored by iMazing, but software is one of the only ways to get .ipa files for apps. You can test it by downloading the free trial, and if you want to purchase it, StackSocial has it on sale now. Note that we are affiliated with StackSocial, so if you buy iMazing this way we will receive a little feedback which will help us keep the site running.

Update: There is an alternate method that uses Apple’s free Apple Configurator 2 app, but requires you to use Terminal to correct permissions. Instructions are detailed in this forum post