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macOS instructions

For MEGA Desktop App development we are targeting macOS Sonoma, although we are providing packages for other versions as well; please check the main README file for a definitive list.

Tools

Downloading the latest stable versions of these tools should generally be Ok.

Xcode & CMake

Install latest XCode via App Store using your Apple account.

We use CMake as our exclusive build system.

Please download and copy CMake.app into /Applications (or custom location) using the macOS dmg Installer from: https://cmake.org/download/

It is useful to add CMake to the system path in the installer wizard. (for current user is fine), so run the following command:

$ sudo "/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake-gui" --install

System tools: autoconf, autoconf-archive, automake, NASM and pkg-config

In a working folder of your preference, get autoconf, autoconf-archive, and automake. Build and install them in the system.

curl -O -L https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.71.tar.xz
curl -O -L https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.16.5.tar.xz
curl -O -L https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf-archive/autoconf-archive-2023.02.20.tar.xz
tar xzf autoconf-2.71.tar.xz
tar xzf automake-1.16.5.tar.xz
tar xzf autoconf-archive-2023.02.20.tar.xz
cd autoconf-2.71
./configure
sudo make install
cd ..
cd automake-1.16.5
./configure
sudo make install
cd ..
cd autoconf-archive-2023.02.20
./configure
sudo make install
cd ..
# Check that both are working
autoconf --version
automake --version

Then download, build and install NASM and pkg-config:

curl -O -L https://www.nasm.us/pub/nasm/releasebuilds/2.16.01/nasm-2.16.01.tar.xz
curl -O -L https://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/pkg-config-0.29.2.tar.gz
tar xzf nasm-2.16.01.tar.xz
tar xzf pkg-config-0.29.2.tar.gz
cd nasm-2.16.01
./configure
$make
sudo make install
cd ..
cd pkg-config-0.29.2
./configure --with-internal-glib
make
sudo make install
cd ..
# Check that both are working
nasm --version
pkg-config --version

Clean-up:

rm -rf autoconf*
rm -rf automake*
rm -rf nasm*
rm -rf pkg-config*

Third-Party dependencies

Qt 5 SDK

You can install Qt Creator using the Qt Online Installer from: https://www.qt.io/download-qt-installer

You will have to create an account, even if you only install the Community Editions.

We are currently using Qt 5.15 (LTS). The latest pre-built version provided by the Qt company is 5.15.2, and is available from the Qt Maintenance Tool (in the "Archive" category).

You can also build a more recent version of Qt using:

cd contrib/build_qt/macOS
./build-qt.sh

Qt will be installed in ~/Qt-build/.

The scripts expects to find python (version 3), perl and jom in the PATH environment variable.

VCPKG

Along with Qt, MEGA Desktop and the MEGA SDK require another dozen or more third party libraries to cover all the functionality exposed to our users. We are using Microsoft's VCPKG C++ Library Manager for managing our dependencies.

You need to clone the VCPKG git repo (you can of course choose the local directory, c:\mega\ is given as an example):

mkdir ~/mega/
cd ~/mega/
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg

Get the source

Open macOS Terminal and clone the Desktop repository:

cd ~/mega/
mkdir desktop
cd desktop
git clone https://github.com/meganz/MEGAsync.git .
git submodule update --init src/MEGASync/mega
cd ..

The MEGA SDK is fetched recursively from https://github.com/meganz/sdk.git

Build everything

Run CMake

Run CMake to configure the project. We will build in a separate directory, outside of the source tree.

cd ~/mega/
cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH='~/Qt-build/5.15.17/5.15.17/arm64' -DVCPKG_ROOT='~/mega/vcpkg' -S '~/mega/desktop' -B '~/mega/build-arm64'

Adapt the parameters to suit your needs:

cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH='<Qt path>' -DVCPKG_ROOT='<VCPKG root path>' -S '<desktop app repository path>' -B '<build directory>'

The dependencies will be built at this stage from VCPKG.

The instructions above are to build for an arm64 target. If you want to build for x86_64, use:

cd ~/mega/
cmake -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES:UNINITIALIZED=x86_64 -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH='~/Qt-build/5.15.17/5.15.17/x86_64'  -DVCPKG_ROOT='~/mega/vcpkg' -S '~/mega/desktop' -B '~/mega/build-x64'

Build the Desktop App

To build the Desktop App, use target MEGAsync. You can build in Debug or Release configuration. Example:

cmake --build '~/mega/build-arm64' --config Debug --target MEGAsync

Development using Qt Creator

Open the CMakeLists.txt located at the root of the repository.

Configure the project

Select the configuration that you want for the project, and set their build path (you can keep the defaults).

You will need to add the path to VCPKG to the CMake configuration. For each configuration, add a new VCPKG_ROOT key (in the "Initial Configuration" tab), and set the value to the VCPKG root directory (for instance ~/mega/vcpkg).

Then click the "Re-configure with Initial Parameters" button. Wait for this process to finish (you can follow the progress in the "General messages" output). You're good to go!