diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index feda4015934..10b169e0fb3 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 - Fixed an issue where `firebase` would error out instead of displaying help text.
 - Fixed an issue where `firebase init genkit` would error on Windows machines.
 - Fixed an issue where emulator returned error when emulating alerts functions written in python (#8019)
+- Better error message for emulator binary architecture incompatibility on MacOS (#7995).
 - Deprecated `emulators.apphosting.startCommandOverride`. Please use `emulators.apphosting.startCommand` instead.
 - Updated `superstatic` to `9.1.0` in package.json.
 - Updated the Firebase Data Connect local toolkit to v1.7.4, which includes a fix for an issue that caused duplicate installations of the Firebase JS SDK. (#8028)
diff --git a/src/emulator/dataconnectEmulator.ts b/src/emulator/dataconnectEmulator.ts
index 8a8a0b2abfb..a1e83910bc8 100644
--- a/src/emulator/dataconnectEmulator.ts
+++ b/src/emulator/dataconnectEmulator.ts
@@ -6,7 +6,13 @@ import * as path from "path";
 
 import { dataConnectLocalConnString } from "../api";
 import { Constants } from "./constants";
-import { getPID, start, stop, downloadIfNecessary } from "./downloadableEmulators";
+import {
+  getPID,
+  start,
+  stop,
+  downloadIfNecessary,
+  isIncomaptibleArchError,
+} from "./downloadableEmulators";
 import { EmulatorInfo, EmulatorInstance, Emulators, ListenSpec } from "./types";
 import { FirebaseError } from "../error";
 import { EmulatorLogger } from "./emulatorLogger";
@@ -83,7 +89,6 @@ export class DataConnectEmulator implements EmulatorInstance {
     } catch (err: any) {
       this.logger.log("DEBUG", `'fdc build' failed with error: ${err.message}`);
     }
-
     await start(Emulators.DATACONNECT, {
       auto_download: this.args.auto_download,
       listen: listenSpecsToString(this.args.listen),
@@ -91,6 +96,7 @@ export class DataConnectEmulator implements EmulatorInstance {
       enable_output_schema_extensions: this.args.enable_output_schema_extensions,
       enable_output_generated_sdk: this.args.enable_output_generated_sdk,
     });
+
     this.usingExistingEmulator = false;
     if (this.args.autoconnectToPostgres) {
       const info = await load(this.args.projectId, this.args.config, this.args.configDir);
@@ -211,7 +217,13 @@ export class DataConnectEmulator implements EmulatorInstance {
       cmd.push("--watch");
     }
     const res = childProcess.spawnSync(commandInfo.binary, cmd, { encoding: "utf-8" });
-
+    if (isIncomaptibleArchError(res.error)) {
+      throw new FirebaseError(
+        `Unknown system error when running the Data Connect toolkit. ` +
+          `You may be able to fix this by installing Rosetta: ` +
+          `softwareupdate --install-rosetta`,
+      );
+    }
     logger.info(res.stderr);
     if (res.error) {
       throw new FirebaseError(`Error starting up Data Connect generate: ${res.error.message}`, {
@@ -231,6 +243,13 @@ export class DataConnectEmulator implements EmulatorInstance {
     const cmd = ["--logtostderr", "-v=2", "build", `--config_dir=${args.configDir}`];
 
     const res = childProcess.spawnSync(commandInfo.binary, cmd, { encoding: "utf-8" });
+    if (isIncomaptibleArchError(res.error)) {
+      throw new FirebaseError(
+        `Unkown system error when running the Data Connect toolkit. ` +
+          `You may be able to fix this by installing Rosetta: ` +
+          `softwareupdate --install-rosetta`,
+      );
+    }
     if (res.error) {
       throw new FirebaseError(`Error starting up Data Connect build: ${res.error.message}`, {
         original: res.error,
diff --git a/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts b/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts
index 04f7b6e1e26..fe14ec717a9 100755
--- a/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts
+++ b/src/emulator/downloadableEmulators.ts
@@ -468,6 +468,14 @@ async function _runBinary(
           emulator.name,
           `Could not spawn child process for emulator, check that java is installed and on your $PATH.`,
         );
+      } else if (isIncomaptibleArchError(e)) {
+        logger.logLabeled(
+          "WARN",
+          emulator.name,
+          `Unknown system error when starting emulator binary. ` +
+            `You may be able to fix this by installing Rosetta: ` +
+            `softwareupdate --install-rosetta`,
+        );
       }
       _fatal(emulator.name, e);
     }
@@ -645,3 +653,12 @@ export async function start(
   );
   return _runBinary(emulator, command, extraEnv);
 }
+
+export function isIncomaptibleArchError(err: unknown): boolean {
+  const hasMessage = (e: any): e is { message: string } => !!e.message;
+  return (
+    hasMessage(err) &&
+    /Unknown system error/.test(err.message ?? "") &&
+    process.platform === "darwin"
+  );
+}