How to play Steam games on a Mac

Steam's Mac app only shows games made for macOS. With Harbor, you can run the Windows version of Steam on an Apple silicon Mac and play Windows games from your library, for free.

Tested with Harbor 0.7.0 on macOS 27.2 · Updated 29 October 2026

Before you start

Download and install Harbor, open it, and choose Prepare Harbor. That needs a Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 14.6 or later, and Rosetta.

Install Steam in Harbor

  1. Create a Steam bottle. Choose Bottles › New Bottle…, select Steam, keep the recommended renderer, and choose Create. A bottle is a separate Windows environment, so Steam and its games stay apart from your other launchers.
  2. Install Steam. Choose Install Steam. Harbor downloads Valve's own installer and installs Steam without further questions.
  3. Sign in. Choose Open Steam and sign in in Steam's window. Your password goes to Valve; Harbor never sees or stores it. On first start Steam updates itself, which takes a while.
  4. Install a game in Steam as you would on a PC. When it finishes, it appears in Harbor's library by itself.
  5. Play from Harbor's library, or from Steam. Harbor starts Steam games through Steam, also while Steam is already open.

Which renderer to use

A Steam bottle starts on D3DMetal, Apple's translation for DirectX 11 and 12, because most Steam games use one of those. Once a game is installed, Harbor reads its files and recommends a renderer for it: often DXMT for 64-bit DirectX 11 games and D3DMetal for DirectX 12. You'll see the recommendation in the bottle's Graphics section and next to the game.

The renderer applies to the whole bottle. If two games want different renderers, give one of them a second Steam bottle. Compare the renderers.

Tips

  • Steam's own window is drawn in software. That's deliberate and keeps it from going black; your games still use the renderer.
  • Launch options: a game's Settings… in Harbor take launch arguments, which Harbor passes to the game through Steam.
  • Controllers appear to games as Xbox controllers, and Steam Input works on top.
  • A game that needs AVX and won't start: turn on Advertise AVX instructions in the bottle's Performance section.
  • Compare renderers: Harbor records the frame rate of every session you start from its library, so you can try a game on two renderers and see which is faster.

What doesn't work

  • Games with kernel-level anti-cheat do not run under Wine, in Harbor or elsewhere. Some online games also forbid Wine in their terms.
  • Harbor is early access. Steam installs and runs in Harbor; how well a particular game runs depends on the game.

If something goes wrong

  • An installed game isn't in the library: in the bottle, choose Programs › Find Programs.
  • A game crashes or shows a black screen: try the other recommended renderer, ideally in a second bottle.
  • Still stuck: choose Diagnostics › Export diagnostics… and email the file to builtbyargo@proton.me with what you were doing.

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