Building Zed for macOS

Repository

Dependencies

Install rustup
Install Xcode from the macOS App Store, or from the Apple Developer website. Note this requires a developer account.

Ensure you launch Xcode after installing, and install the macOS components, which is the default option.

Install Xcode command line tools
```
xcode-select --install
```

Ensure that the Xcode command line tools are using your newly installed copy of Xcode:

sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
sudo xcodebuild -license accept

Install cmake (required by a dependency)
```
brew install cmake
```

Backend Dependencies

If you are developing collaborative features of Zed, you'll need to install the dependencies of zed's collab server:

Install Postgres
Install Livekit and Foreman
```
brew install livekit foreman
```

Alternatively, if you have Docker installed you can bring up all the collab dependencies using Docker Compose:

docker compose up -d

Building Zed from Source

Once you have the dependencies installed, you can build Zed using Cargo.

For a debug build:

cargo run

For a release build:

cargo run --release

And to run the tests:

cargo test --workspace

Troubleshooting

Error compiling metal shaders

error: failed to run custom build command for gpui v0.1.0 (/Users/path/to/zed)`**

xcrun: error: unable to find utility "metal", not a developer tool or in PATH

Try sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Cargo errors claiming that a dependency is using unstable features

Try cargo clean and cargo build.

Error: 'dispatch/dispatch.h' file not found

If you encounter an error similar to:

src/platform/mac/dispatch.h:1:10: fatal error: 'dispatch/dispatch.h' file not found

Caused by:
  process didn't exit successfully

  --- stdout
  cargo:rustc-link-lib=framework=System
  cargo:rerun-if-changed=src/platform/mac/dispatch.h
  cargo:rerun-if-env-changed=TARGET
  cargo:rerun-if-env-changed=BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS_aarch64-apple-darwin
  cargo:rerun-if-env-changed=BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS_aarch64_apple_darwin
  cargo:rerun-if-env-changed=BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS

This file is part of Xcode. Ensure you have installed the Xcode command line tools and set the correct path:

xcode-select --install
sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Additionally, set the BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS environment variable:

export BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS="--sysroot=$(xcrun --show-sdk-path)"

Then clean and rebuild the project:

cargo clean
cargo run