This post documents how to set up a macOS virtual machine with Tart.

Installing Tart

Option 1: Install Tart via Homebrew

If you don't already have Homebrew installed

Navigate to http://brew.sh/.
Copy and execute the install command shown on the Homebrew website in Terminal:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
⚠️ Caution: Be careful about executing shell scripts directly from the internet.

Once brew is installed, install Tart

brew install cirruslabs/cli/tart

Option 2: Install Tart directly from Github

Download Tart. As of mid-July 2025, 2.28.2 is the latest release:

curl https://github.com/cirruslabs/tart/releases/download/2.28.2/tart.tar.gz -Lo tart.tar.gz
-L will allow curl to follow redirects and o specifies what you want to name the downloaded file and where you want to save it.
Extract Tart to /Applications:

tar -xzf tart.tar.gz -C /Applications
Create an alis for Tart, so that you can simply type tart in terminal to access it.
alias tart=/Applications/tart.app/Contents/MacOS/tart
⚠️ If you try to create a symlink instead of an alias, this make cause tart create to fail in unexpected ways due to not being able to launch /Applications/tart.app. When in doubt, stick to an alias.
Make sure Tart is installed properly. If you type tart in terminal and see the following output then you are good to go!
% tart USAGE: tart
OPTIONS: –version Show the version. -h, –help Show help information.
SUBCOMMANDS: create Create a VM clone Clone a VM run Run a VM set Modify VM’s configuration get Get a VM’s configuration list List created VMs login Login to a registry logout Logout from a registry ip Get VM’s IP address exec Execute a command in a running VM pull Pull a VM from a registry push Push a VM to a registry import Import VM from a compressed .tvm file export Export VM to a compressed .tvm file prune Prune OCI and IPSW caches or local VMs rename Rename a local VM stop Stop a VM delete Delete a VM suspend Suspend a VM
See ’tart help ’ for detailed help.

Obtaining a macOS image

Option 1: Clone images provided directly by Tart

⚠️ Tart provided images may have some tools pre-installed. This could have a negative or postive effect your testing workflows depending on what you are testing.

Pick the image you want to clone from https://github.com/cirruslabs/macos-image-templates.
If you chose macos-tahoe-base and wanted to name it my-tahoe-base-vm, for example, your clone command would be this:
tart clone ghcr.io/cirruslabs/macos-tahoe-base:latest my-tahoe-base-vm

Option 2: Download vanilla macOS firmware directly from Apple

Visit Mr. Macintosh’s excellent IPSW database or utilize Ninxsoft’s Mist to download your desired IPSW.
After the download finishes, create your tart image from the IPSW. In this example, I am pointing to an ipsw I downloaded to my desktop:
tart create my-15_5-vm --from-ipsw /Users/bk/Desktop/UniversalMac_15.5_24F74_Restore.ipsw
This command will trigger Tart to install the OS in the virtual machine. You should see the installation progress as so:
Installing OS... 0% 76%
Once it completes, you should see your virtual machine sitting at the macOS language selection screen.
You can automate clicking through Setup Assistant by sending keystrokes to the VM. See Packer Tart for info on how to do that.

Using your Tart VM

Launching your VM

If you named your VM my-15_5-vm, for example, you’d run it with tart run my-15_5-vm. Keep this process running in Terminal to keep your VM alive.

That's it! 🎉 Now you have macOS running as a virtual machine.

Executing commands from your host

If you want to enable tart exec, which allows you to execute commands against the VM from your host, or copy-and-paste, install https://github.com/cirruslabs/tart-guest-agent inside the VM.
Inside the host, run tart-guest-agent --run-agent. Now tart exec and copy-and-paste will work!
As an example, you can run tart exec blah open /Applications/Safari.app from your host to launch Safari in your VM.
Note: Some Tart images will already have the agent installed.

Transferring files between host and VM

There’s multiple ways to share files between your host and guest.

Mount a file share

When you launch your VM with `tart run` you can pass a flag to create a shared folder which is accessible under `/Volumes`.

tart run my-15_5-vm --dir=~

% tart exec blah ls /Volumes
  Macintosh HD
  My Shared Files

Remember: tart exec requires tart-guest-agent to be installed and running inside your VM.

Run a local webserver on your host machine

For example, if you have python3 installed, this command will serve your home directory as a local webserver.
```
python3 -m http.server -d ~ # defaults to port 8000
```

Next, find the IP address of your host machine via Terminal or System Settings:

% ifconfig en0 | grep -w "inet"
inet 192.168.4.58 netmask 0xfffffc00 broadcast 192.168.7.255

From your virtual machine, you can now curl these files.
```
% curl http://192.168.4.58:8000/
```