What's New in VirtualBuddy 2.2 Beta 6

Save and Resume Virtual Machines

You can now save a running macOS virtual machine's state when closing its window or quitting VirtualBuddy, then resume where you left off. General settings let you choose whether to save state, shut down, or ask every time.

Saved virtual machines show the time they were saved in the library and virtual machine window. To keep a saved state for later, duplicate the virtual machine before resuming it.

Saving requires a macOS guest, a storage volume that supports file cloning, and disk images stored inside the virtual machine. A new option in Storage settings lets you copy external disk images into the virtual machine. Saving isn't available while a USB device is attached or when starting up in recovery mode, DFU mode, or from an installation disk.

Saved states stay with the virtual machine on the same Mac. They don't preserve shared folder contents or network connections, and may become incompatible after macOS or VirtualBuddy updates.

Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts

You can now turn input to the active virtual machine on or off by pressing and holding Control-Option-Command for two seconds for the keyboard, or Control-Option-Shift for the mouse or trackpad.

A new onscreen indicator shows progress while you hold the shortcut, confirms whether input is on or off, and displays shortcut reminders when you use the toolbar controls.

Other Changes & Improvements

• Fixes an issue where creating a virtual machine with a name already in use could overwrite an existing virtual machine. Setup now asks you to choose a different name.
• The virtual machine toolbar now shows VirtualBuddyGuest connection status, with instructions for installing or enabling the guest app.
• Shared folder settings now explain that VirtualBuddyGuest is needed to mount folders automatically, with an option to enable it when it's turned off.
• Turning off VirtualBuddyGuest in a macOS virtual machine's settings now also disables communication with an already installed guest app.
• You can now turn clipboard sharing on or off for Linux virtual machines in Sharing settings. VirtualBuddy also preserves this setting when importing a virtual machine from UTM. Clipboard sharing still requires a compatible Spice agent running in the Linux guest.

Full Changelog: 2.2-b5...2.2-b6

From Previous Builds

• Adds a new socket-based implementation of the VirtualBuddyGuest app protocol for faster and more reliable clipboard sharing; requires guests running macOS 14 or later.
• Adds new toggles to the virtual machine window toolbar that can be used to toggle mouse and keyboard input on/off.
• Addresses an issue where boot deep links would not work when the virtual machine window was already open.
• Adds support for managed preferences that can be used to restrict shared folders, USB passthrough, bridged networking, guest app, and microphone input.

This version adds support for USB device passthrough.

USB device passthrough requires macOS 27 host and guest. Configure devices in the virtual machine settings.

Devices with isochronous endpoints (such as iPhones) are not supported by Virtualization.

Improved Bridged Networking

VirtualBuddy now monitors the selected bridged network interface and automatically reconnects it to the guest when the interface becomes available again.

The new Guest menu provides start, stop, and pause actions, plus a Network submenu for reconnecting or switching bridged network interfaces during the current virtual machine session.

Other Changes & Improvements

• VirtualBuddyGuest now automatically uses a compatible legacy build when the built-in version doesn't support the guest's macOS release.
• Fixes an issue that could prevent installation from a manually selected local IPSW after the software catalog was refreshed.
• Installation failures using the new macOS installation mechanism for macOS Golden Gate now show the underlying MobileDevice error and provide an option to export the relevant logs.
• You can now configure a virtual machine directly from its context menu in the library. (by @ElSteverino)
• You can now increase the boot disk size of macOS virtual machines that have APFS encryption and FileVault turned off. (by @balcsida)

Install macOS 27 guests in macOS 26 hosts

This build includes a new macOS virtual machine installation mechanism that works around the Virtualization bugs that are preventing macOS 27 virtual machines from being installed successfully in macOS 26 hosts.

Currently this is only used when installing macOS 27. If you'd like to force VirtualBuddy to always use this new mechanism for installing macOS, run the following command in Terminal:

defaults write codes.rambo.VirtualBuddy VBForceVirtualInstallationBackend -bool YES

Other Changes & Improvements

• Improves validation of macOS account details to prevent errors when attempting to boot the provisioned virtual machine for the first time.
• The installation log console has been redesigned and it now recovers log messages produced before the console was opened (up to 30 minutes of logs are recovered).
• Addresses an issue that caused an installation alert to show up when attempting to open a duplicated virtual machine.

Skip Setup Assistant

When configuring a new virtual machine, you can now set up a macOS user account that will be automatically created on first boot, skipping the entire macOS Setup Assistant process.

You can also configure the virtual machine to automatically log in with the configured user account and enable SSH for remote login.

This feature requires macOS 27 on both the host and guest.

Other Changes & Improvements

• You can now copy the configuration from an existing virtual machine when configuring a new one.
• The virtual machine configuration interface now uses the selected restore image to show which features are supported by the guest and host.
• Custom restore images now use best-effort feature detection so configuration options are enabled or disabled more accurately.
• The maximum boot disk image size has been increased to 8 TB.
• Greater adoption of Liquid Glass throughout the interface.
• Addresses an issue that caused the virtual machine window's title bar to cover up the guest Menu Bar, requiring the window to be resized for the guest display to adjust.
• Improves the error message shown when a virtual machine fails to boot because the maximum number of simultaneous virtual machines has been reached.
• Fixes an issue that could occur when attempting to boot a virtual machine that uses the same MAC address as another virtual machine. (by @apfritts)
• Mac virtual machines now use cached disk mode for improved reliability. (by @MarvinDontPanic)