Standard Setup of Toolchain for Mac OS (Legacy GNU Make)
Note
Since ESP-IDF V4.0, the default build system is based on CMake. This documentation is for the legacy build system based on GNU Make. Support for this build system may be removed in future major releases.
Install Prerequisites
install pip:
sudo easy_install pip
Note
pip will be used later for installing the required Python packages.
Toolchain Setup
ESP32 toolchain for macOS is available for download from Espressif website:
https://dl.espressif.com/dl/xtensa-esp32-elf-gcc8_4_0-esp-2021r2-patch5-macos.tar.gz
Download this file, then extract it in ~/esp directory:
mkdir -p ~/esp
cd ~/esp
tar -xzf ~/Downloads/xtensa-esp32-elf-gcc8_4_0-esp-2021r2-patch5-macos.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.
Next Steps
To carry on with development environment setup, proceed to section Step 2. Get ESP-IDF.