Lately, however, the stable release of VS for Mac is really starting to feel like a simple, but luxurious cousin to Visual Studio 2019. Different, but related. Installation on a Mac is quick, simple, and allows you to get into coding right away - whether you are already familiar or an Apple-only dev getting into something new like Xamarin. Running VS Code on Mac Installation. Download Visual Studio Code for Mac. Double-click on the downloaded archive to expand the contents. Drag Visual Studio Code.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the Launchpad. Add VS Code to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon and choosing Options, Keep in Dock. Step 2 – Install Visual Studio Code on macOS. First, fetch the latest version of homebrew and formula. Then tap the Caskroom/Cask repository from Github. After that search for the visual-studio-code package. Brew update brew tap caskroom/cask brew cask search visual-studio-code Then install Visual Studio Code by running the following command.
Getting started
If you're just getting started withRust and would like a more detailed walk-through, see ourgetting started page.
Windows considerations
On Windows, Rust additionally requires the C++ build tools for Visual Studio 2013 or later. The easiest way to acquire the build tools is by installing Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools 2019 which provides just the Visual C++ build tools. Alternately, you can install Visual Studio 2019, Visual Studio 2017, Visual Studio 2015, or Visual Studio 2013 and during install select the “C++ tools.”
For further information about configuring Rust on Windows see the Windows-specific rustup
documentation.
Toolchain management with rustup
Rust is installed and managed by the rustup
tool. Rust has a 6-week rapid release process and supports a great number of platforms, so there are many builds of Rust available at any time. rustup
manages these builds in a consistent way on every platform that Rust supports, enabling installation of Rust from the beta and nightly release channels as well as support for additional cross-compilation targets.
If you've installed rustup
in the past, you can update your installation by running rustup update
.
For more information see the rustup
documentation.
Configuring the PATH
environmentvariable
In the Rust development environment, all tools are installed to the ~/.cargo/bin
%USERPROFILE%.cargobin
directory, and this is where you will find the Rust toolchain, including rustc
, cargo
, and rustup
.
Install Visual Studio Code For Mac
Accordingly, it is customary for Rust developers to include this directory in their PATH
environment variable. During installation rustup
will attempt to configure the PATH
. Because of differences between platforms, command shells, and bugs in rustup
, the modifications to PATH
may not take effect until the console is restarted, or the user is logged out, or it may not succeed at all.
If, after installation, running rustc --version
in the console fails, this is the most likely reason.
Uninstall Rust
If at any point you would like to uninstall Rust, you can run rustup self uninstall
. We'll miss you though!
Installation
- Download Visual Studio Code for macOS.
- Open the browser's download list and locate the downloaded archive.
- Select the 'magnifying glass' icon to open the archive in Finder.
- Drag
Visual Studio Code.app
to theApplications
folder, making it available in the macOS Launchpad. - Add VS Code to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon to bring up the context menu and choosing Options, Keep in Dock.
Launching from the command line

You can also run VS Code from the terminal by typing 'code' after adding it to the path:
- Launch VS Code.
- Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P) and type 'shell command' to find the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.
- Restart the terminal for the new
$PATH
value to take effect. You'll be able to type 'code .' in any folder to start editing files in that folder.
Note: If you still have the old code
alias in your .bash_profile
(or equivalent) from an early VS Code version, remove it and replace it by executing the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.
Alternative manual instructions
Instead of running the command above, you can manually add VS Code to your path, to do so run the following commands:
Start a new terminal to pick up your .bash_profile
changes.
Note: The leading slash is required to prevent
$PATH
from expanding during the concatenation. Remove the leading slash if you want to run the export command directly in a terminal.
Note: Since zsh
became the default shell in macOS Catalina, run the following commands to add VS Code to your path:
Touch Bar support
Out of the box VS Code adds actions to navigate in editor history as well as the full Debug tool bar to control the debugger on your Touch Bar:
Mojave privacy protections
After upgrading to macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave and is not specific to VS Code. The same dialogs may be displayed when running other applications as well. The dialog is shown once for each type of personal data and it is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders. You can read a more detailed explanation in this blog post.
Updates
VS Code ships monthly releases and supports auto-update when a new release is available. If you're prompted by VS Code, accept the newest update and it will get installed (you won't need to do anything else to get the latest bits).
Note: You can disable auto-update if you prefer to update VS Code on your own schedule.
Preferences menu
You can configure VS Code through settings, color themes, and custom keybindings available through the Code > Preferences menu group.
You may see mention of File > Preferences in documentation, which is the Preferences menu group location on Windows and Linux. On a macOS, the Preferences menu group is under Code, not File.
Next steps
Once you have installed VS Code, these topics will help you learn more about VS Code:
- Additional Components - Learn how to install Git, Node.js, TypeScript, and tools like Yeoman.
- User Interface - A quick orientation around VS Code.
- User/Workspace Settings - Learn how to configure VS Code to your preferences settings.
Common questions
Why do I see 'Visual Studio Code would like access to your calendar.'
Visual Studio Mac Review
If you are running macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave discussed above. It is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders.
VS Code fails to update
If VS Code doesn't update once it restarts, it might be set under quarantine by macOS. Follow the steps in this issue for resolution.
Does VS Code run on Mac M1 machines?
Yes, VS Code supports macOS ARM64 builds that can run on Macs with the Apple M1 chip. You can install the Universal build, which includes both Intel and Apple Silicon builds, or one of the platform specific builds.
