Actively maintained. Runs natively on Apple Silicon (no Rosetta required).
This is a community-maintained fork of OpenEmu for M-series Macs. The app runs on macOS 11.0+ and has been tested on macOS Sequoia and macOS 26 (Tahoe).
Download: Get the latest signed DMG from the Releases page. The app is notarized — no Gatekeeper workaround needed.
- RetroAchievements verified with official hardcore mode support across Phase 1 Systems, see wiki for more details
- Improved Gamecube performance via Dolphin and Wii is officially working, though still a bit experimental.
- Arcade is officially working via MAME, though remains experimental and requires additional testing.
- Sony PSP (PPSSPP), Dreamcast (Flycast) , and Nintendo DS (DeSmuME) have all recently been added and seem to stable for most users and hardware.
- Automatic Backup Folder for backing up battery saves and BIOS files
- Cheats now save and persist across game sessions
Get the latest build from the Releases page.
brew tap nickybmon/OpenEmu-Silicon https://github.com/nickybmon/OpenEmu-Silicon
brew install --cask openemu-siliconFull details — working status, known issues, in-progress cores, and what's planned — are on the Supported Systems wiki page.
Quick summary: 30+ systems work today, including NES, SNES, Game Boy, GBA, N64, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, Dreamcast, GameCube/Wii, and more. A handful have known issues (PSP, Saturn, Game Boy Color categorization). PS2 has no core yet.
- Save state compatibility — Save states from certain older cores are incompatible with current ARM64 builds and will crash if loaded. On launch, the app detects these and shows a warning dialog. Back up your save states before your first launch — see Migrating from OpenEmu for the full list and instructions.
- Input Monitoring permission may need to be granted manually in System Settings → Privacy & Security.
- A few cores have quirks on Apple Silicon still being investigated (see open issues).
- macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) or later
- Apple Silicon Mac (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4)
The original OpenEmu is still an amazing piece of Mac software. stuartcarnie brought Metal rendering to the app in 2019. MaddTheSane ported the emulation cores to ARM64 starting in 2021. cyco, clobber, J-rg, and the rest of the OpenEmu team built the application, the plugin architecture, and the library experience over more than a decade. That work is the foundation everything here stands on.
The original project went quiet around 2024 after the last release. By that time, the original team had already done significant work on the ARM64 cores. The ARM64 core work was real and substantial, but it was never assembled into a release — the last official binary (December 2023) was stated as Intel-only. bazley82 published a downloadable ARM64 build in early 2026, pulling together the ARM64-capable core submodules the original team had prepared into a single repo and release. This fork continued from there: RetroAchievements shipped across 9+ cores; a Libretro Bridge was built to load RetroArch cores directly inside OpenEmu; ScreenScraper cover art was integrated; Dreamcast was migrated from Reicast to Flycast; save persistence, system detection, and the core update pipeline were all fixed; and the app was hardened for macOS 26 (Tahoe).
Lineage:
- OpenEmu/OpenEmu — the original project
- bazley82/OpenEmuARM64 — ARM64 build, built on the original team's core work and what I started building upon
- This repo — continued development and maintenance by @nickybmon and others.
The vast majority of the code in this repo is still from the original developers. I have not changed the underlying architecture or approach for the app (apart form having it in a single repo to make it easier for a small team to maintain), it is still the same work done by an exceptional team of engineers. I work on this project with AI assisted development practices. These tools help me write and debug code I couldn't write alone. That said, I review every change, test everything, and make all the calls about direction and quality. I'm transparent about this because honesty with the community matters more than maintaining an illusion of expertise I don't have. The goal is to keep something good alive and make it genuinely usable for players.
| Doc | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Wiki | User guides: getting started, BIOS files, importing, CD games, controllers, troubleshooting |
| Migrating from OpenEmu | Switching from the original OpenEmu: what carries over, what doesn't, and how to back up |
| Supported Systems | Every system: working status, known issues, in-progress cores, what's planned, and BIOS requirements |
CREDITS.md |
Everyone who contributed — original OpenEmu team, ARM64 port, core sources, illustrators, and this repo's contributors |
Issues, PRs, and testing feedback are all welcome. If something breaks for you, open an issue and describe your Mac model, macOS version, and which system/game you were running. That context is the most valuable thing you can provide.
If you want to contribute code, check the open issues for good starting points. A clear PR description of what it fixes is the best kind of contribution.
The main OpenEmu app and SDK are licensed under the BSD 2-Clause License. Individual emulation cores carry their own licenses (GPL v2, MPL 2.0, LGPL 2.1, and others) — see each core's directory for details.
Note: picodrive includes a non-commercial clause. This project is and will remain free.