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Compiling for macOS

Note

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:

Note

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

  1. 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:

  1. sudo port install scons

See also

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:

  1. scons platform=macos arch=x86_64

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

  1. 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:

  1. lipo -create bin/godot.macos.tools.x86_64 bin/godot.macos.tools.arm64 -output bin/godot.macos.tools.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.

Note

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 target=release_debug:

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

Note

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:

  1. mkdir -p Godot.app/Contents/Frameworks
  2. 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:

  1. scons platform=macos target=editor

And then use the --headless command line argument:

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

To compile a debug server build which can be used with remote debugging tools, use:

  1. scons platform=macos target=template_debug

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

  1. 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:

    1. scons platform=macos target=template_release arch=x86_64
    2. scons platform=macos target=template_debug arch=x86_64

  • For ARM64 (Apple M1):

    1. scons platform=macos target=template_release arch=arm64
    2. 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:

  1. lipo -create bin/godot.macos.opt.x86_64 bin/godot.macos.opt.arm64 -output bin/godot.macos.opt.universal
  2. lipo -create bin/godot.macos.opt.debug.x86_64 bin/godot.macos.opt.debug.arm64 -output bin/godot.macos.opt.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.64 and godot_macos_debug.64 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):

  1. cp -r misc/dist/macos_template.app .
  2. mkdir -p macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS
  3. cp bin/godot.macos.opt.universal macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS/godot_macos_release.64
  4. cp bin/godot.macos.opt.debug.universal macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS/godot_macos_debug.64
  5. chmod +x macos_template.app/Contents/MacOS/godot_macos*

Note

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:

  1. mkdir -p macos_template.app/Contents/Frameworks
  2. 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:

  1. 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.:

  1. 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.:

  1. export OSXCROSS_ROOT="$HOME/osxcross"

Now you can compile with SCons like you normally would:

  1. 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:

  1. scons platform=macos osxcross_sdk=darwin15