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I've been meaning to try out Terraria, but it requires Windows and I only have a Mac. I can use things like Boot Camp or a virtual machine, but is there a way to run it without resorting to running a copy of Windows?

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1 Answer

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An enterprising user on the Terraria forums created a wrapper for Terraria using MonoGame called MacTerraria.

To use it:

  1. Download Steam and purchase Terraria. You can do this on a Mac.
  2. Download Terraria using Steam. This can't be done on a Mac, unfortunately: you need to use Boot Camp, a virtual machine, or another Windows PC to download it.

  3. Copy the terraria folder found in:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\steamapps\common

    to your Mac.

  4. Download MacTerraria from the linked forum post and place it anywhere you want (probably good to keep it in your Applications folder).

  5. Locate Terraria.exe. This will be in Steam's application support folder. You can get to do the default location by going to the Go menu in Finder, selecting Go to Folder..., typing in the following and pressing the Go button:

    ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/terraria

  6. Copy Terraria.exe and place it in the folder alias MacTerraria came with. If you don't have the alias, right-click or control-click on MacTerraria and select Show Package Contents. Then, navigate to the following folder:

    Contents → Resources → exes

    and place Terraria.exe in there.

Once done, run MacTerraria and enjoy.

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it's quite unstable though - crashes randomly on my Mac – user8949 Aug 13 '11 at 12:56
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@bckbck except for the occasional CPU spike, it hasn't crashed or done anything funky at all in about 5 hours of play. – user3389 Aug 13 '11 at 23:06
I played it on 1.0.5 under Snow Leopard and under 1.0.6 under both Snow Leopard and Lion. I did get an occasional crash, but I haven't had a crash in my last two days of playing. I think the CPU spikes have become more noticeable with the last update (could be 1.0.6, could be Lion, could be MacTerraria wrapper update, or could just be me). – ccoakley Aug 15 '11 at 18:43
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Just FYI I'm trying to download Terraria through Steam on my MacBook (Mountain Lion) and Steam says "Terraria is not available on your current platform." It appears Steam will no longer let you download games that aren't meant to run natively. – Lester Peabody Oct 5 '12 at 16:44
@LesterPeabody You're right: I noticed that a few months ago too, but I neglected to update the answer: it's now fixed. You need to use Boot Camp or some other method to download it on Windows first. – user3389 Oct 5 '12 at 18:36

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