How can I test with Internet Explorer while on my Mac?

I work on a Mac, but most of my users are on Windows. What's an easy way to test my websites in IE 7, 8, & 9? Wine seems kinda buggy and unfriendly.


Solution 1:

I have the perfect solution! In 2013, Microsoft released a free officially-supported solution to help Mac developers test with Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 on Macs:

  1. Go to https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/
  2. Select your desired testing OS ("Mac")
  3. Pick a virtualization platform from among VMWare, Parallels, and VirtualBox. If in doubt, choose VirtualBox (which you can download from the VirtualBox site)
  4. Follow the directions to download VMs for the version of IE + Windows you want

Hope this helps.

Solution 2:

  1. Download and Install the free Oracle Virtualbox Virtual Machine software

  2. Utilize the scripts noted in the OS X Daily article Internet Explorer for Mac the Easy Way: Run IE 7, IE8, & IE9 Free in a Virtual Machine to download, convert and install Microsoft's free IE Testing VMs to be used on VirtualBox.

We’re going to walk you through how to install Internet Explorer 7, 8, or 9 in a virtual machine running Windows, directly in Mac OS X – for free. This is achieved by using the freely available VirtualBox software from Oracle, and combining that with free Internet Explorer testing virtual machines from Microsoft

Here is the scripts presented in the Article:

...

Install ALL versions of Internet Explorer: IE7, IE 8, and IE 9

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash

Install Internet Explorer 7 Only

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="7" bash

...