Tails works on most computers less than 10 years old.

Tails might not work on:

See the known hardware compatibility issues.

Hardware requirements:

  • A USB stick of 8 GB minimum or a recordable DVD.

    All the data on this USB stick or DVD will be lost when installing Tails.

  • The ability to start from a USB stick or a DVD reader.

  • A 64-bit x86-64 compatible processor:

    • IBM PC compatible but not PowerPC nor ARM.
    • Most Mac computers are IBM PC compatible since 2006.
    • Tails does not work with Mac models that use the Apple M1 or M2 chips.
    • Tails does not work on 32-bit computers since Tails 3.0 (June 2017).
    • Tails does not work on most tablets and phones.
  • 2 GB of RAM to work smoothly.

    Tails can work with less than 2 GB RAM but might behave strangely or crash.