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Compiling for macOS ​

INFO

This page describes how to compile macOS editor and export template binaries from source. If you're looking to export your project to macOS instead, read Exporting for macOS.

Requirements ​

For compiling under macOS, the following is required:

INFO

If you have Homebrew installed, you can easily install SCons using the following command:

shell
brew install scons

Installing Homebrew will also fetch the Command Line Tools for Xcode automatically if you don't have them already.

Similarly, if you have MacPorts installed, you can easily install SCons using the following command:

shell
sudo port install scons

INFO

To get the Godot source code for compiling, see Getting the source.

For a general overview of SCons usage for Godot, see Introduction to the buildsystem.

Compiling ​

Start a terminal, go to the root directory of the engine source code.

To compile for Intel (x86-64) powered Macs, use:

shell
scons platform=macos arch=x86_64

To compile for Apple Silicon (ARM64) powered Macs, use:

shell
scons platform=macos arch=arm64

To support both architectures in a single "Universal 2" binary, run the above two commands and then use lipo to bundle them together:

shell
lipo -create bin/godot.macos.editor.x86_64 bin/godot.macos.editor.arm64 -output bin/godot.macos.editor.universal

If all goes well, the resulting binary executable will be placed in the bin/ subdirectory. This executable file contains the whole engine and runs without any dependencies. Executing it will bring up the Project Manager.

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If you want to use separate editor settings for your own Godot builds and official releases, you can enable Self-contained mode by creating a file called ._sc_ or _sc_ in the bin/ folder.

To create an .app bundle like in the official builds, you need to use the template located in misc/dist/macos_tools.app. Typically, for an optimized editor binary built with dev_build=yes:

shell
cp -r misc/dist/macos_tools.app ./Godot.app
mkdir -p Godot.app/Contents/MacOS
cp bin/godot.macos.editor.universal Godot.app/Contents/MacOS/Godot
chmod +x Godot.app/Contents/MacOS/Godot
codesign --force --timestamp --options=runtime --entitlements misc/dist/macos/editor.entitlements -s - Godot.app

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If you are building the master branch, you also need to include support for the MoltenVK Vulkan portability library. By default, it will be linked statically from your installation of the Vulkan SDK for macOS. You can also choose to link it dynamically by passing use_volk=yes and including the dynamic library in your .app bundle:

shell
mkdir -p Godot.app/Contents/Frameworks
cp <Vulkan SDK path>/macOS/lib/libMoltenVK.dylib Godot.app/Contents/Frameworks/libMoltenVK.dylib

Running a headless/server build ​

To run in headless mode which provides editor functionality to export projects in an automated manner, use the normal build:

shell
scons platform=macos target=editor

And then use the --headless command line argument:

shell
./bin/godot.macos.editor.x86_64 --headless

To compile a debug server build which can be used with Command line tutorial, use:

shell
scons platform=macos target=template_debug

To compile a release server build which is optimized to run dedicated game servers, use:

shell
scons platform=macos target=template_release production=yes

Building export templates ​

To build macOS export templates, you have to compile using the targets without the editor: target=template_release (release template) and target=template_debug.

Official templates are universal binaries which support both Intel x86_64 and ARM64 architectures. You can also create export templates that support only one of those two architectures by leaving out the lipo step below.

  • For Intel x86_64:

    shell
    scons platform=macos target=template_release arch=x86_64
scons platform=macos target=template_debug arch=x86_64

  • For Arm64 (Apple M1):

    shell
    scons platform=macos target=template_release arch=arm64
scons platform=macos target=template_debug arch=arm64

To support both architectures in a single "Universal 2" binary, run the above two commands blocks and then use lipo to bundle them together:

shell
lipo -create bin/godot.macos.template_release.x86_64 bin/godot.macos.template_release.arm64 -output bin/godot.macos.template_release.universal
lipo -create bin/godot.macos.template_debug.x86_64 bin/godot.macos.template_debug.arm64 -output bin/godot.macos.template_debug.universal

To create an .app bundle like in the official builds, you need to use the template located in misc/dist/macos_template.app. The release and debug builds should be placed in macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS with the names godot_macos_release.universal and godot_macos_debug.universal respectively. You can do so with the following commands (assuming a universal build, otherwise replace the .universal extension with the one of your arch-specific binaries):

shell
cp -r misc/dist/macos_template.app .
mkdir -p macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS
cp bin/godot.macos.template_release.universal macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS/godot_macos_release.universal
cp bin/godot.macos.template_debug.universal macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS/godot_macos_debug.universal
chmod +x macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS/godot_macos*

INFO

If you are building the master branch, you also need to include support for the MoltenVK Vulkan portability library. By default, it will be linked statically from your installation of the Vulkan SDK for macOS. You can also choose to link it dynamically by passing use_volk=yes and including the dynamic library in your .app bundle:

shell
mkdir -p macos_template.app/Contents/Frameworks
cp <Vulkan SDK path>/macOS/libs/libMoltenVK.dylib macos_template.app/Contents/Frameworks/libMoltenVK.dylib

You can then zip the macos_template.app folder to reproduce the macos.zip template from the official Godot distribution:

shell
zip -q -9 -r macos.zip macos_template.app

Using Pyston for faster development ​

You can use Pyston to run SCons. Pyston is a JIT-enabled implementation of the Python language (which SCons is written in). Its "full" version is currently only compatible with Linux, but Pyston-lite is also compatible with macOS (both x86 and ARM). Pyston can speed up incremental builds significantly, often by a factor between 1.5× and 2×. Pyston can be combined with alternative linkers such as LLD or Mold to get even faster builds.

To install Pyston-lite, run python -m pip install pyston_lite_autoload then run SCons as usual. This will automatically load a subset of Pyston's optimizations in any Python program you run. However, this won't bring as much of a performance improvement compared to installing "full" Pyston (which currently can't be done on macOS).

Cross-compiling for macOS from Linux ​

It is possible to compile for macOS in a Linux environment (and maybe also in Windows using the Windows Subsystem for Linux). For that, you'll need to install OSXCross to be able to use macOS as a target. First, follow the instructions to install it:

Clone the OSXCross repository somewhere on your machine (or download a ZIP file and extract it somewhere), e.g.:

shell
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross.git "$HOME/osxcross"

  1. Follow the instructions to package the SDK: https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross#packaging-the-sdk

  2. Follow the instructions to install OSXCross: https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross#installation

After that, you will need to define the OSXCROSS_ROOT as the path to the OSXCross installation (the same place where you cloned the repository/extracted the zip), e.g.:

shell
export OSXCROSS_ROOT="$HOME/osxcross"

Now you can compile with SCons like you normally would:

shell
scons platform=macos

If you have an OSXCross SDK version different from the one expected by the SCons buildsystem, you can specify a custom one with the osxcross_sdk argument:

shell
scons platform=macos osxcross_sdk=darwin15