Standard Setup of Toolchain for Mac OS (CMake)

Note

This is documentation for the CMake-based build system which is currently in preview release. If you encounter any gaps or bugs, please report them in the Issues section of the ESP-IDF repository.

The CMake-based build system will become the default build system in ESP-IDF V4.0. The existing GNU Make based build system will be deprecated in ESP-IDF V5.0.

Install Prerequisites

ESP-IDF will use the version of Python installed by default on Mac OS.

  • install pip:

    sudo easy_install pip

  • install pyserial:

    pip install --user pyserial

  • install CMake & Ninja build:

    • If you have HomeBrew, you can run:

      brew install cmake ninja

    • If you have MacPorts, you can run:

      sudo port install cmake ninja

    • Otherwise, consult the CMake and Ninja home pages for Mac OS installation downloads.

  • It is strongly recommended to also install ccache for faster builds. If you have HomeBrew, this can be done via brew install ccache or sudo port install ccache on MacPorts.

Note

If an error like this is shown during any step:

 xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun

Then you will need to install the XCode command line tools to continue. You can install these by running ``xcode-select --install``.

Toolchain Setup

ESP32 toolchain for macOS is available for download from Espressif website:

https://dl.espressif.com/dl/xtensa-esp32-elf-osx-1.22.0-80-g6c4433a-5.2.0.tar.gz

Download this file, then extract it in ~/esp directory:

mkdir -p ~/esp
cd ~/esp
tar -xzf ~/Downloads/xtensa-esp32-elf-osx-1.22.0-80-g6c4433a-5.2.0.tar.gz

The toolchain will be extracted into ~/esp/xtensa-esp32-elf/ directory.

To use it, you will need to update your PATH environment variable in ~/.profile file. To make xtensa-esp32-elf available for all terminal sessions, add the following line to your ~/.profile file:

export PATH=$HOME/esp/xtensa-esp32-elf/bin:$PATH

Alternatively, you may create an alias for the above command. This way you can get the toolchain only when you need it. To do this, add different line to your ~/.profile file:

alias get_esp32="export PATH=$HOME/esp/xtensa-esp32-elf/bin:$PATH"

Then when you need the toolchain you can type get_esp32 on the command line and the toolchain will be added to your PATH.

Log off and log in back to make the .profile changes effective. Run the following command to verify if PATH is correctly set:

printenv PATH

Next Steps

To carry on with development environment setup, proceed to section Get ESP-IDF.