My son bought me a MacBook Air, which is lovely, but I miss Solitaire from my old PC. Is there a way to play Solitaire on a Mac system?
While there are thousands of great programs on a Windows PC, it’s surprising just how many people swear by the Solitaire game. Generations of computer users have found that their go-to app for when they had time to burn, whether on an airplane, train, office, or classroom. Even today, it’s common to be on a plane and see at least one person playing Solitaire on their laptop when you walk down the aisle. Of course, the latest version of Windows 11 kind of messed up the Solitaire game by making it bigger and more complex – see my tutorial How to Find Solitaire in Windows 11 for details – but it’s still darn popular.
Mac has always been a bit different, however, and instead of shipping with Solitaire, the built-in game is one that I imagine a tiny fraction of users even know exists, let alone play: Chess. Perhaps it’s just more highbrow, but wouldn’t it be nice if the system included some great casual games like Tetris, Sudoku, Word Search, and, of course, Solitaire? Fortunately, it really is just a click or two away, though you’ll be wading through a lot of titles with “in-app purchases” to find one that’s truly free…
SEARCH FOR SOLITAIRE IN THE MAC APP STORE
Start by launching the App Store on your Mac. It’s found on the Apple menu (top left of the menubar). This is a great program to familiarize yourself with because it’s also how you’ll keep most of your apps updated too: A click on “Updates” will show how to proceed. For our task, however, search by clicking on the magnifying lens icon on the top right and type in “solitaire”:
There are a lot of Solitaire games and some of them look beautiful. You can even see that I’ve previously installed “Full Deck Solitaire” by the fact that there’s a cloud image with an arrow (which denotes that it’s previously downloaded or purchased but not found on this particular computer). The App Store has some useful filters to narrow down results. Click on “Filters” to reveal them:
I’ve already selected “Free” for price and to have the results sorted by “Ratings”. Click on “Filters (2)” again and this info will be hidden so you can focus on just the results:
As you can immediately see, the “free” filter is super annoying because it doesn’t filter out in-app purchase software. Since it’s impossible to know whether “in-app purchase” will be required to play even a basic game or whether it’s for super fancy graphics that you can safely ignore while enjoying the basic app, this aspect of in-app purchasing and search is a bit broken, unfortunately.
Instead, it’s up to your eyeballs: Scan until you see a program that shows “GET” but doesn’t have that small print below it.
INSTALLING “SOLITAIRE EPIC” FOR MACOS
I have found a match called “Solitaire Epic” that looks pretty good:
The graphics don’t look great, to be honest, but it should let me play a game of what’s known as Klondike Solitaire. Let’s install it!
To do that, simply click on “GET“. The button will change:
Click on “INSTALL” and after a bit (including the App Store possibly asking for your login password) it’ll change yet again to this:
Ready to go? Click on “OPEN” or just find the game in your Applications folder to launch it!
READY TO PLAY SOLITAIRE EPIC GAME ON MAC
The game will launch and go right to a help screen:
As you can see, the graphics are very much like those for a PC game, and it’s not very elegant, but… close that info screen and you can certainly jump into playing a game of Solitaire easily enough!
There are probably other Solitaire games that have more attractive interfaces if that’s an issue for you, some of which might have in-app purchases that you won’t need to make to enjoy the program, but I’ll leave it up to you to find one that has the best aesthetics for your taste. If you do have a favorite, though, why not leave its name in the comments here for others to check out too? Have fun!
THERE ARE ALSO ONLINE ALTERNATIVES
Before we wrap up this article, it’s also worth highlighting that there are a lot of online, web-based solitaire games too, if you’d rather not install a new app on your Mac. While some are overrun by ads, others offer a similarly clean and elegant interface. Two that I suggest you check out to get a sense of this segment are:
• Solitaired.com offers a wide variety of online Solitaire games including Spider Solitaire and FreeCell and is super fast too.
• Cardgames.io has a wide variety of different card games online, including various Solitaire variants.
• Google Solitaire. Do a Google search for “solitaire” and you’ll find a playable game right on the search results page!
As with apps, if you find a Website that has a good interface and minimal ads and distractions, please leave its URL in the comments so others can check it out too. Good luck with your games, whichever path you choose!
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about the Mac since the very first system was released. Please check out my extensive Mac Help Library while you’re visiting. Thanks!