Installation

Installation

Requires macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon or Intel. Choose the regular DMG for Apple Silicon or the Intel DMG (-intel.dmg) for Intel. Secure Sandbox requires Apple Silicon and macOS 26 or later. Liquid Glass and Control Center require macOS 26; macOS 14/15 use standard controls. Apple Intelligence domain suggestions require macOS 26 and an available on-device model; Spotlight server indexing requires macOS 15.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel.

Homebrew (recommended)

brew install --cask v2macapp/tap/v2mac

Homebrew skips the Gatekeeper prompt. After that V2Mac updates itself, also when installed with Homebrew (see Updating).

Manual download

1. Download V2Mac-<version>.dmg from the latest release. Each release also has a .sha256 file to check the download.
2. Open the DMG and drag V2Mac to Applications.
3. The app is not notarized, so macOS blocks the first launch. Open it once, then click Open Anyway in System Settings → Privacy & Security, or run:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/V2Mac.app

Checking a download

V2Mac is not notarized yet, so macOS can't vouch for the DMG. What you can check:

shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/V2Mac-<version>.dmg

• Compare the result with the release's .sha256 file and with sha256 in the Homebrew cask. A match shows the file was not damaged or swapped on the way. Both come from the same release, so it does not prove the release itself is genuine.
• After installing, codesign --verify --deep --strict /Applications/V2Mac.app checks that nothing in the app was changed after it was built.
• In-app updates are stronger: each one is signed with V2Mac's update key, and the app refuses one that isn't.

First connection

1. Click Add Subscription (⌘N) and paste your subscription URL, or a single vless://, vmess://, trojan://, ss:// or hy2:// link.
2. Double-click a server (or select it and press Return) to connect.
3. Point your apps at socks5://127.0.0.1:10808 or http://127.0.0.1:10808, or switch on System Proxy or TUN.

V2Mac lives in the menu bar. Closing the window keeps the proxy running; quit with ⌘Q to stop it.

On first launch V2Mac asks for permission to show notifications. See Menu Bar and Shortcuts.

Updating

• App: V2Mac checks GitHub once a day and installs new versions by itself. It downloads only the files that changed (often well under 1 MB) in the background, then installs the update when you quit. While an update is waiting, a small dot appears on the menu bar icon, and the panel and Settings → General show Restart Now to install it at once (the VPN drops for a few seconds). A ring on the icon means a new version was found but is not downloaded yet. After the update you get a "V2Mac updated to …" notification.
• To decide yourself, turn off Install updates automatically in Settings → General: V2Mac then only shows Update Now. Check for app updates turns off the check altogether.
• Every update is checked against the project's signature before anything is installed.
• Xray core: Settings → Core → Check for Update. The download is checked against its SHA-256 and tested before it replaces the current core. Revert to Bundled goes back to the core that came with the app.

Uninstalling

1. Quit V2Mac (⌘Q). This turns off TUN, the system proxy and the kill switch.
2. If you enabled the privileged helper, remove it in Settings → General → Privileged helper → Remove Helper.
3. Delete /Applications/V2Mac.app (or brew uninstall --cask v2mac).
4. To remove your data too: ~/Library/Application Support/v2mac.