Building Emacs
If installing on macOS, install emacs-app or emacs-mac-app from
MacPorts. The latter version is the
Yamamoto Mitsuharu
version which provides native GUI support for macOS. However, since Emacs 23,
native GUI support is now included in the standard GNU distribution (MacPorts
emacs-app), but emacs-mac-app has
additional enhancements
for the Mac.
However, it can be useful to have an independently built version for those
occasions when a MacPorts upgrade fails, leaving a broken environment where
Emacs may not run. Fortunately there's always vi or vim to fallback on,
but if you prefer to use Emacs, you can create a minimal Emacs on macOS
without installing many library dependencies, build from source with:
Installing GNU Emacs:
Download the latest Emacs version.
The configure options provide a working Emacs with minimal effort.
$ cd /usr/local/src
$ tar -xf ../emacs-29.4.tar.xz
$ cd emacs-29.4
$ ./configure --without-makeinfo --with-gnutls=ifavailable
$ make
$ ./src/emacs
With Emacs 29.4 the --without-makeinfo option no longer exists. Worse it
fails to build if makeinfo command does not exist. Install the texinfo
package.
Download texinfo-7.2.tar.gz, extract and build:
$ cd /usr/local/src
$ tar -xf ../texinfo-7.2.tar.gz
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
See the excellent documentation in the root of the Emacs source, particularly the INSTALL and README files for more information.
You can also run make install (which installs under ./nextstep without
using root/sudo) and then copy ./nextstep/Emacs.app to the /Applications
folder and run it from there. However, Due to the extra security on newer
versions of macOS you probably won't be able to run it as Emacs.App and will
need to execute emacs from the command line in the source folder as above.
If you have an Apple developer account, see the 'Code Signing' section below.
See https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS for further details.
To configure the Emacs build to include GNU Mailutils;
first, build mailutils with the following arguments:
$ ./configure --disable-cxx --disable-python --disable-build-servers \
--without-readline
Build GnuTLS as described in the 'Building GnuTLS' section below, then configure Emacs with:
$ ./configure --with-gnutls --with-mailutils
Note: To rebuild a package using the same command line options as last
passed to the ./configure command, run ./config.status --recheck. See
makefile - How do you "echo" the last configure/make build --options within a source directory? - Stack Overflow.
You can also see how Emacs was built in a running Emacs with
C-h v system-configuration-options.
See also self-contained portable emacs on stackoverflow
Code Signing
After building Emacs and running making install (without sudo):
# Display your signing keys
security find-identity -p codesigning -v \
| awk '{ if (match($0, "\".*\"")) print substr($0, RSTART, RLENGTH); }'
cd nextstep
# Attempt to sign with the developer key using the developer ID from the
# awk output
codesign --force -s "Apple Development: Foo Bar (XXXXXXXXXX)" Emacs.app
# Response shows first subcomponent that also needs signing
Emacs.app: replacing existing signature
Emacs.app: code object is not signed at all
In subcomponent: /usr/local/src/emacs-29.4/nextstep/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/Emacs.pdmp
# Sign all the components in the `libexec` folder
codesign --force -s "Apple Development: Foo Bar (XXXXXXXXXX)" Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/*
# Repeat the top level signing
codesign --force -s "Apple Development: Foo Bar (XXXXXXXXXX)" Emacs.app
# Optionally verify the signatures
codesign --verify --verbose Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/Emacs.pdmp
codesign --verify --verbose Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/rcs2log
codesign --verify --verbose Emacs.app
# Copy to the Applications folder:
cp -a Emacs.app /Applications/
Try opening the application using Finder. It may take multiple attempts before macOS will allow the application to run. Thereafter it should be launchable as normal.
Building GnuTLS
Building GnuTLS is a non-trivial task on macOS. There are a number of nested
dependencies and one or two traps along the way. You need to read the
INSTALL.md distributed with GnuTLS at the very least.
Below are some of the solutions I found to succeed in a build. I cannot vouch for how appropriate or correct these solutions are.
If you have any problems, I would recommend examining the Portfiles for each of the MacPort installers, to assist in determining where to download packages from on the Internet, which versions may be appropriate and any patches that may need to be applied.
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports
Notes for packages which need to be built with specific ./configure options
are listed in the following sub-sections.
-- Frank Dean - 12 Feb 2025
libiconv
https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libiconv/
./configure
pkgconfig
https://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/
It's good to build pkgconfig early on as other artifact builds use
it. pkgconfig has a circular dependency with glib. You get around
it by building with its own internal version of glib.
./configure --with-internal-glib 'CFLAGS=-Wno-int-conversion'
Version 0.29.2 may need patching. See MacPorts Portfile.
After install glib2, pkgconfig can be rebuilt using ./configure without
any parameters.
gmp
https://gmplib.org/download/gmp/
./configure
ncurses
Optional dependency.
https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html
./configure --enable-widec --disable-lib-suffixes --enable-overwrite \
--with-shared --with-cxx-shared --without-debug --without-ada \
--with-manpage-format=normal --enable-pc-files --disable-mixed-case
gettext
https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gettext/
./configure
coreutils
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/
Optionally, so as to distinguish GNU coreutils from the BSD commands of the
same name, prefix all the commands with g:
./configure --program-prefix=g
sed
Optionally, so as to distinguish the GNU sed command from the BSD sed
command, prefix the command with g:
./configure --program-prefix=g
bzip2
Optional dependency.
https://sourceware.org/bzip2/downloads.html
make
sudo make install
There doesn't appear to be an uninstall script for bzip2.
libedit
Optional dependency.
./configure
zlib
Optional dependency.
./configure
pcre2
https://github.com/PCRE2Project/pcre2/releases
./configure
glib2
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/releases
Glib now needs
Meson
to build. See INSTALL.md in the root of the Glib source.
Download ninja-mac.zip
Ninja which Meson depends on.
Unzip the file and place the executable on your path. You'll need to open the
executable using finder to override system security before it can be used by
Meson.
pip3 install --user meson
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/Library/Python/3.9/bin"
meson setup _build
meson compile -C _build
sudo meson install -C _build
Uninstall with:
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/Library/Python/3.9/bin"
sudo meson uninstall
Uninstall meson with:
pip3 uninstall meson
openssl
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/releases
./Configure
make
sudo make install
nettle
https://www.lysator.liu.se/~nisse/nettle/
Nettle must be compiled with GMP support to provide Libhogweed (nettle's companion library).
./configure
libtasn1
https://www.gnu.org/software/libtasn1/
./configure
libxslt
Optional dependency.
https://download.gnome.org/sources/libxslt/
./configure --without-python --without-crypto
p11-kit
https://github.com/p11-glue/p11-kit/releases
./configure --without-trust-paths
expat
https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases
./configure
flex
Optional dependency.
https://github.com/westes/flex/releases
./configure
libsodium
Optional dependency.
https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium/releases
./configure
unbound
https://nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/
./configure
After building and installing:
sudo /usr/local/sbin/unbound-anchor -a /usr/local/etc/unbound/root.key
brotli
Optional dependency.
https://github.com/google/brotli
zstd
Optional dependency.
https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases
gnutls
https://www.gnupg.org/ftp/gcrypt/gnutls/
./configure --with-included-unistring --with-unbound-root-key-file=/usr/local/etc/unbound/root.key
jansson
Optional dependency.
https://github.com/akheron/jansson/releases
./configure
xz
Optional dependency of libxml2.
https://github.com/tukaani-project/xz/releases
./configure
libxml2
Optional dependency.
https://download.gnome.org/sources/libxml2/
./configure --enable-static --with-ftp --with-http --with-icu \
--with-lzma --with-zlib --without-python
sqlite3
Optional dependency.
https://www.sqlite.org/download.html
After downloading and extracting the autoconf version
e.g. sqlite-autoconf-3480000.tar.gz, check the SAH3-256 hash with:
openssl sha3-256 sqlite3.c
./configure --enable-threadsafe --enable-dynamic-extensions \
--disable-readline --enable-editline AWK=/usr/bin/awk
webp
Optional dependency.
emacs
./configure \
--without-dbus --without-gconf --with-libgmp --with-gnutls \
--with-json=ifavailable --with-xml2 --with-modules
-- Frank Dean - 12 Feb 2025
Related Topics: EmacsTips