How to Play iPhone & iPad Games on Mac

Have you ever wanted to play the iPhone or iPad games you own on your Mac? Perhaps, you just want to play one game of Among Us while you’re stuck at work? As long as you have a Mac that’s powered by Apple Silicon, you’re all set.

At this point, it’s no secret that the Apple ARM-powered Macs are capable of running iOS and iPadOS apps natively. What this means is that your favorite iPhone games are playable on your Mac too. Having said that, this particular functionality comes with a catch that we’ll talk about in a minute.

Read along as we’ll be guiding you on how to play your iPhone and iPad games on your M1/M2 Apple Silicon-powered Mac.

How to Play iPhone & iPad Games on Mac

You’ll need to be sure that your Mac is using the same Apple ID as the iPhone or iPad that you play games on since it’s much more straightforward to download a game that you’ve purchased before. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Launch the App Store on your Mac and click on your Apple ID name at the bottom-left corner of the window.
   
   
2. This section will list out all your purchased apps. Click on “iPhone & iPad Apps” to filter out the purchased iOS/iPadOS apps that are capable of running on your Mac.
   
   
3. Scroll down and find the game that you want to install on your Mac and click on the Download button.
   
   
4. Next, simply click on the app from your Launchpad or the Applications folder and it should start running in a new window.
   
   
5. We’re not quite done yet since you have access to more options especially if your Mac is running macOS Big Sur 11.3 or later. To access them, click on the app/game name from the menu bar and choose “Preferences” from the dropdown menu.
   
   
6. You should be in the General section of the Preferences panel where you’ll be able to make your window size larger or smaller, with the default setting being larger.
   
   
7. Click on “Touch Alternatives” and you’ll have the option to replace your touch inputs and motion controls with your keyboard and trackpad.
   
   
8. Likewise, you can head over to the Game Control section and enable Controller Emulation if you want to map controller inputs to your keyboard and trackpad. That said, you can only enable either Controller Emulation or Touch Alternatives at a time.
   
   

There you go. Now, you know how easy it is to natively run iPhone and iPad games on a supported Mac.

If there’s an iPad version of an iPhone game that you purchased, your Mac will automatically download the iPad version since it would better suit the bigger screen.

Now, let’s talk about the catch, which might disappoint a lot of gamers. Unfortunately, you can only play games that show up in your Mac App Store. If you’re unable to find some of your iPhone or iPad games here, it’s likely that the app developer chose to not make the game available on Apple Silicon Macs. This applies to regular apps as well.

Some users managed to find a way to install just about any iOS/iPadOS app on M1 Macs by sideloading them with the help of a tool called iMazing Configurator. However, with the release of macOS Big Sur 11.3 onward, this functionality has been permanently blocked by Apple. You can still use the software to install developer-approved apps that you haven’t purchased before.

Hopefully, you were able to find the iPhone and iPad games that you play on the Mac App Store. If not, which game were you looking for? How many games are missing from your purchased list? Share your personal experiences with us and leave your valuable feedback on this feature down in the comments.