Although installing R and RStudio on Mac OS X wasn’t particularly difficult, I thought I would make some notes here, in case they’re useful to someone else. These instructions make use of Homebrew, a convenient command line package manager for Mac OS X.
Homebrew
Instead, we'll focus on the ins and outs of Windows and Linux OSs'. But if you know one operating system, you'll be able to navigate any operating system. Fortunately, all Apple computers come with Mac OS pre-installed, so we'll just go through the important parts of the operating system. Okay, here's the desktop environment for our Mac. In my last post about installing the rgdal R package on Mac OS X, I had apparently glossed over the last step of compiling the R package from source. I hadn’t realized that Mac OS X actually doesn’t come default with the necessary software to do this. Click on the 'Download R for (Mac) OS X' link at the top of the page. Click on the file containing the latest version of R under 'Files.' Save the.pkg file, double-click it to open, and follow the installation instructions. Now that R is installed, you need to download and install RStudio. To Install RStudio.
Let’s begin with some prerequisites.
The first thing you’ll need is Homebrew, which is described as ‘The missing package manager for OS X’. Once installed, Homebrew allows you to compile and install open source packages (or formulas) with a command as simple as:
where [formula] is the name of a package.
Follow the latest instructions on the Homebrew website to get that installed. Note that you may be asked to install the Xcode Command Line Tools - this will ensure that your system has a compiler, and the necessary libraries, to build other packages.
You will also need to install Homebrew Cask, which extends Homebrew with a workflow for managing Mac applications distributed as binaries:
Install XQuartz
To make the most of R’s plotting and interactive tools, you’ll also need XQuartz. Mac OS X used to include an X11 implementation out-of-the-box, but it was later released as its own open source project. You can install XQuartz as a Homebrew cask:
If instructed to restart/log out, do so. R’s X11 support relies on certain environment variables being set, which is most easily achieved with a fresh log-in.
Compile R
Although R is not available in Homebrew’s default repository, you can provide a formula for R by installing an additional ‘tap’ before installing R itself:
Now you can compile and install R itself. Note that we have to include the --with-x11 flag so that R is compiled with X11 support:
Alternatively, you can do this as a one-liner by referencing the tap in the formula name:
Either approach will ensure that all of R’s dependencies are installed.
Install RStudio
Finally, you can install RStudio. This can be installed using an official DMG file from the RStudio website, or you can install it from Homebrew Cask:
Note the inclusion of the --appdir option. By default, Cask formula’s will create aliases in ~/Applications, but this option tells Homebrew to use /Applications instead.
You can check that everything is working (including X11 support) by starting RStudio and typing:
This should open a blank R Graphics window. Note that X11 support relies on certain environment variables being set, so if you have just installed XQuartz, you may need to restart your computer (or log out then log in again) to ensure that R can find X11.
Installer Mac Os X Apple
That’s it! You’re ready to go.
Note: This post was updated 12 May 2016.
This directory contains binaries for a base distribution and packages to run on Mac OS X (release 10.6 and above). Mac OS 8.6 to 9.2 (and Mac OS X 10.1) are no longer supported but you can find the last supported release of R for these systems (which is R 1.7.1) here. Releases for old Mac OS X systems (through Mac OS X 10.5) and PowerPC Macs can be found in the old directory.
Note: CRAN does not have Mac OS X systems and cannot check these binaries for viruses.Although we take precautions when assembling binaries, please use the normal precautions with downloaded executables.
Package binaries for R versions older than 3.2.0 are only available from the CRAN archive so users of such versions should adjust the CRAN mirror setting (https://cran-archive.r-project.org) accordingly.
R 4.0.3 'Bunny-Wunnies Freak Out' released on 2020/10/10
Please check the MD5 checksum of the downloaded image to ensure that it has not been tampered with or corrupted during the mirroring process. For example type
openssl sha1 R-4.0.3.pkg
in the Terminal application to print the SHA1 checksum for the R-4.0.3.pkg image. On Mac OS X 10.7 and later you can also validate the signature using
pkgutil --check-signature R-4.0.3.pkg
Latest release:
| R-4.0.3.pkg (notarized and signed) SHA1-hash: 8402f586aef1fdb12c6e34c73b286f87318fb1be (ca. 85MB) | R 4.0.3 binary for macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) and higher, signed and notarized package. Contains R 4.0.3 framework, R.app GUI 1.73 in 64-bit for Intel Macs, Tcl/Tk 8.6.6 X11 libraries and Texinfo 6.7. The latter two components are optional and can be ommitted when choosing 'custom install', they are only needed if you want to use the tcltk R package or build package documentation from sources. Note: the use of X11 (including tcltk) requires XQuartz to be installed since it is no longer part of OS X. Always re-install XQuartz when upgrading your macOS to a new major version. Important: this release uses Xcode 10.1 and GNU Fortran 8.2. If you wish to compile R packages from sources, you will need to download and GNU Fortran 8.2 - see the tools directory. |
| NEWS (for Mac GUI) | News features and changes in the R.app Mac GUI |
| Mac-GUI-1.73.tar.gz SHA1-hash: 7f4b1d050757ce78545bdeb9d178a69d13046aa1 | Sources for the R.app GUI 1.73 for Mac OS X. This file is only needed if you want to join the development of the GUI, it is not intended for regular users. Read the INSTALL file for further instructions. |
Note: Previous R versions for El Capitan can be found in the el-capitan/base directory.Binaries for legacy OS X systems: | |
| R-3.6.3.nn.pkg (signed) SHA1-hash: c462c9b1f9b45d778f05b8d9aa25a9123b3557c4 (ca. 77MB) | R 3.6.3 binary for OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and higher, signed package. Contains R 3.6.3 framework, R.app GUI 1.70 in 64-bit for Intel Macs, Tcl/Tk 8.6.6 X11 libraries and Texinfo 5.2. The latter two components are optional and can be ommitted when choosing 'custom install', they are only needed if you want to use the tcltk R package or build package documentation from sources. |
| R-3.3.3.pkg MD5-hash: 893ba010f303e666e19f86e4800f1fbf SHA1-hash: 5ae71b000b15805f95f38c08c45972d51ce3d027 (ca. 71MB) | R 3.3.3 binary for Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) and higher, signed package. Contains R 3.3.3 framework, R.app GUI 1.69 in 64-bit for Intel Macs, Tcl/Tk 8.6.0 X11 libraries and Texinfo 5.2. The latter two components are optional and can be ommitted when choosing 'custom install', it is only needed if you want to use the tcltk R package or build package documentation from sources. Note: the use of X11 (including tcltk) requires XQuartz to be installed since it is no longer part of OS X. Always re-install XQuartz when upgrading your OS X to a new major version. |
| R-3.2.1-snowleopard.pkg MD5-hash: 58fe9d01314d9cb75ff80ccfb914fd65 SHA1-hash: be6e91db12bac22a324f0cb51c7efa9063ece0d0 (ca. 68MB) | R 3.2.1 legacy binary for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) - 10.8 (Mountain Lion), signed package. Contains R 3.2.1 framework, R.app GUI 1.66 in 64-bit for Intel Macs. This package contains the R framework, 64-bit GUI (R.app), Tcl/Tk 8.6.0 X11 libraries and Texinfop 5.2. GNU Fortran is NOT included (needed if you want to compile packages from sources that contain FORTRAN code) please see the tools directory. NOTE: the binary support for OS X before Mavericks is being phased out, we do not expect further releases! |
Subdirectories:
Install R For Mac
| tools | Additional tools necessary for building R for Mac OS X: Universal GNU Fortran compiler for Mac OS X (see R for Mac tools page for details). |
| base | Binaries of R builds for macOS 10.13 or higher (High Sierra) |
| contrib | Binaries of package builds for macOS 10.13 or higher (High Sierra) |
| el-capitan | Binaries of package builds for OS X 10.11 or higher (El Capitan build) |
| mavericks | Binaries of package builds for Mac OS X 10.9 or higher (Mavericks build) |
| old | Previously released R versions for Mac OS X |
You may also want to read the R FAQ and R for Mac OS X FAQ. For discussion of Mac-related topics and reporting Mac-specific bugs, please use the R-SIG-Mac mailing list.
Information, tools and most recent daily builds of the R GUI, R-patched and R-devel can be found at http://mac.R-project.org/. Please visit that page especially during beta stages to help us test the Mac OS X binaries before final release!
Package maintainers should visit CRAN check summary page to see whether their package is compatible with the current build of R for Mac OS X.
Clean Reinstall Mac Os X
Binary libraries for dependencies not present here are available from http://mac.R-project.org/libs and corresponding sources at http://mac.R-project.org/src.
Last modified: 2020/10/10, by Simon Urbanek