Building on macOS

Guide for building Bitcoin Core on macOS using Homebrew

Updated for macOS 15 (Sequoia)

This guide describes how to build bitcoind, command-line utilities, and GUI on macOS.

Preparation

The commands in this guide should be executed in a Terminal application. macOS comes with a built-in Terminal located at:

/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app

1. Xcode Command Line Tools

The Xcode Command Line Tools are a collection of build tools for macOS. These tools must be installed to build Bitcoin Core from source.

1. Install Xcode Command Line Tools

   Run the following command:

   xcode-select --install
   

   Upon running the command, you should see a popup appear. Click on Install to continue the installation process.

2. Homebrew Package Manager

Homebrew is a package manager for macOS that allows you to install packages from the command line easily. While several package managers are available for macOS, this guide focuses on Homebrew as it is the most popular.

1. Install Homebrew

   Visit https://brew.sh and follow the installation instructions.

   If you encounter issues while installing Homebrew or pulling packages, refer to Homebrew’s troubleshooting page.

3. Install Required Dependencies

These dependencies represent the packages required to get a barebones installation up and running. See dependencies.md for a complete overview.

1. Install base dependencies

   brew install cmake boost pkgconf libevent capnp
   

4. Clone Bitcoin Repository

git should already be installed by default on your system. Now that all required dependencies are installed, clone the Bitcoin Core repository:

git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git

All build scripts and commands will run from this directory.

5. Install Optional Dependencies

Wallet Dependencies

If you do not need wallet functionality, you can use -DENABLE_WALLET=OFF in the configuration step below.

SQLite is required for the wallet, but macOS ships with a usable sqlite package, so you don’t need to install anything additional.

IPC Dependencies

If you do not need IPC functionality (see multiprocess.md), you can omit capnp from the installation above and use -DENABLE_IPC=OFF in the configuration step.

GUI Dependencies

1. Install Qt6

   Bitcoin Core includes a GUI built with the cross-platform Qt Framework. To compile the GUI, install Qt and pass -DBUILD_GUI=ON:

   brew install qt@6
   

   Building with Qt binaries downloaded from the Qt website is not officially supported. See #7714.

2. Install libqrencode (optional)

   The GUI can encode addresses in QR codes. To enable this feature:

   brew install qrencode
   

   Otherwise, if you don’t need QR encoding support, pass -DWITH_QRENCODE=OFF to disable this feature.

ZMQ Dependencies

Support for ZMQ notifications requires the following dependency. Skip if you do not need ZMQ functionality.

brew install zeromq

For more information on ZMQ, see zmq.md.

Test Suite Dependencies

There is an included test suite that is useful for testing code changes when developing. To run the test suite (recommended), you will need Python 3:

brew install python

Deploy Dependencies

You can deploy a .zip containing the Bitcoin Core application. This requires python and zip to be installed.

Building Bitcoin Core

1. Configuration

There are many ways to configure Bitcoin Core. Here are a few common examples:

Wallet and GUI

cmake -B build -DBUILD_GUI=ON

The first example enables the GUI. If sqlite or qt are not installed, this will throw an error.

2. Compile

After configuration, you are ready to compile:

1. Build Bitcoin Core

   cmake --build build     # Append "-j N" for N parallel jobs
   
2. Run tests

   ctest --test-dir build  # Append "-j N" for N parallel tests
   

3. Deploy (Optional)

You can create a .zip containing the .app bundle:

cmake --build build --target deploy

Running Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core should now be available at ./build/bin/bitcoind. If you compiled support for the GUI, it should be available at ./build/bin/bitcoin-qt.

There is also a multifunction command line interface at ./build/bin/bitcoin supporting subcommands like:

• bitcoin node
• bitcoin gui
• bitcoin rpc
• and others (list with bitcoin help)

The first time you run bitcoind or bitcoin-qt, it will start downloading the blockchain. This process could take many hours, or even days on slower systems.

Data Directory

By default, blockchain and wallet data files will be stored in:

/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/

Configuration File

Before running, you may create an empty configuration file:

mkdir -p "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin"
touch "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"
chmod 600 "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"

Monitoring

You can monitor the download process by looking at the debug.log file:

tail -f $HOME/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/debug.log

Common Commands

# Start the Bitcoin daemon
./build/bin/bitcoind -daemon

# Show command-line options
./build/bin/bitcoin-cli --help

# Show RPC commands (when daemon is running)
./build/bin/bitcoin-cli help

# Start bitcoin-qt in server mode (allows bitcoin-cli control)
./build/bin/bitcoin-qt -server