en	[[!meta title="System requirements and recommended hardware"]]

en	Summary

en	- Tails works on:

en	Most PC computers that are less than 10 years old

en	Some older Mac computers with an Intel processor

en	- Tails does not work:

en	Newer Mac computers with an Apple processor (M1 or M2)

en	Smartphones or tablets

en	Raspberry Pi

en	- Tails might not work on:

en	Some older computers, for example, if they don't have 2 GB of RAM.

en	Some newer computers, for example, if their [[graphics card is incompatible with Linux|support/known_issues/graphics]]. Nvidia or AMD Radeon cards often do not work in Tails.

en	See our [[list of known hardware compatibility issues|support/known_issues]].

en	Detailed hardware requirements

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

en	All the data on this USB stick or DVD is lost when installing Tails.

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

en	A 64-bit [[!wikipedia x86-64]] [[!wikipedia IBM_PC_compatible]] processor.

en	Tails does not works on [[!wikipedia ARM_architecture desc="ARM"]] or [[!wikipedia PowerPC]] processors.

en	Tails does not work on 32-bit computers since [[Tails 3.0|news/Tails_3.0_will_require_a_64-bit_processor]] (June 2017).

en	- 2 GB of RAM to work smoothly.

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

en	Recommended hardware

en	Laptop models evolve too rapidly for us to be able to provide an up-to-date list of recommended hardware. Below are some guidelines if you, or your organization, are considering acquiring a laptop dedicated to running Tails.

en	For PC

en	- Avoid "gaming" models with Nvidia or AMD Radeon graphics cards.

en	Consider buying a refurbished laptop from a high-end (professional) series. These are cheaper and will last longer than new but lower-quality laptops.

en	For example, the Lenovo ThinkPad series work well with Tails, including the X250, X1 Carbon, T440, T480, and T490 models.

en	If you live in a part of the world where buying refurbished laptops is uncommon, look on eBay and Amazon. Amazon offers a 90-day [Amazon Renewed Guarantee](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G4ZAA22U35N373NX).

en	Consider buying a new laptop from vendors who guarantee the compatibility with Linux and Tails like [ThinkPenguin](https://www.thinkpenguin.com/).

en	For Mac

en	Unfortunately, we don't know of any Mac model that works well in Tails and can run the latest macOS version.

en	<!--

en	To update the list of Mac computer:

en	Store an archive of WhisperBack reports from the last 6 months in a folder.

en	Decrypt all the reports:

en	~/Tails/blueprints/stats/whisperback_scripts/decrypt.rb

en	Extract the list of computer models:

en	~/Tails/blueprints/stats/whisperback_scripts/content_of.rb "/usr/sbin/dmidecode -s system-product-name" > machines

en	Sort and count identical models:

en	grep -v Bug_report machines | sort | uniq -c | sort -rhk 1 > top

en	Share WhisperBack reports number with the Foundations team and ask them to evaluate hardware compatibility hints in those reports.

en	While analyzing the reports corresponding from each model, FT should:

en	Check whether they were sent from the same email address, if any

en	Check whether the wlan0 interface was the same hardware device

en	Check whether the report was about hardware compatibility issues

en	Check whether these Mac models still support the latest version of macOS.

en	To update the list of PC computers:

en	- Check what's commonly available with refurbishing companies.

en	- Ask assembly@ for models.

en	-->