macOS Development Environment

Prerequisites

You will need the prerequisites below to build Brave on macOS 10.15+.

macOS SDK 15.0 is needed as per https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:build/config/mac/mac_sdk.gni;l=43. This is bundled with Xcode 16.0 for example as per https://xcodereleases.com

There are additional details in the Chromium build system requirements at https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/lkgr/docs/mac_build_instructions.md#system-requirements (do not follow any of the instructions after system requirements):

• Node.js active LTS version (v20) - brew install nvm and nvm install --lts && nvm alias default lts/* && nvm use default

• Python - 2.7 and 3+ - Note: On macOS 12.3 and higher Python 2.7 is no longer included by default and you will have to install it manually or brew install python3

Other tips

• Make sure you have Spotlight fully off or privacy on for the build directory (or indexing will slow it down). System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy

Build Acceleration

Internal developers can find more information on remote build execution here

Build Configuration

Please refer to this document for information about setting up .env build configuration.