Octave for macOS

GNU Octave is primarily developed on GNU/Linux and other POSIX conformant systems. On macOS systems GNU Octave can be installed

• from a single dmg-file, a macOS App Bundle called "Octave.app" in recent versions, or
• by using a macOS package manager.

macOS App Bundles

The Octave.app project (GitHub page) provides an unofficial ready-to-use macOS App Bundle installer based on Homebrew (see blow).

• macOS App Bundle of Octave 5.1.0 Beta (with GUI)
• macOS App Bundle of Octave 4.4.x (with GUI)

An older installer is hosted on SourceForge.

• macOS App Bundle of Octave 4.0.3 (with GUI) (OS X 10.9+)

Package Managers

A package manager is a software tool to automate the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages for a computer's operating system in a consistent manner. It typically maintains a database of software dependencies and version information to prevent software mismatches and missing prerequisites.

Packages are distributions of software, applications and data. Packages also contain metadata, such as the software's name, description of its purpose, version number, vendor, checksums, and a list of dependencies necessary for the software to run properly. Upon installation, metadata is stored in a local package database.

All package managers below are given in alphabetical order. The Octave developers do not recommend a certain package manager.

Fink

The Fink project is an effort to port and package open-source Unix programs to macOS. Fink uses dpkg and APT (Debian's package management system), as well as its own frontend program, fink (which is implemented as a set of Perl modules).

Install GNU Octave using Fink:

• Install Xcode via the Mac App Store.
  • Once installed, install the Command Line Tools from Xcode's Apple Menu > Preferences > Downloads on 10.7 or 10.8, and use sudo xcode-select --install on 10.9 or 10.10 .
• Follow Fink's installation instructions. For OS X 10.8-10.10, enabling the binary distribution during the initial setup will save you a lot of build time. For those who prefer it, there is a GUI available for Fink, Fink Commander.
• Fink has excellent support for Octave and includes recent as well as dated versions. A list of what Fink has available for Octave is here. To install the latest Octave with GUI support, type fink install octave-qtmac or fink install octave-qtx11 at the Terminal's command line. For those running the 64 bit version of Fink, it is recommended that octave-atlas-qtmac or octave-atlas-qtx11 be installed instead as there are some bugs/features with Apple's vecLib for the X86_64 architecture. Octave has many dependencies which will be downloaded and installed prior to Octave. The entire installation process can take many hours.
• Fink should also be used to install [packages for Octave. For example, the control systems package may be installed by typing fink install control-atlas-oct382 at a terminals command line.

For the doc() function to be supported by Octave, either the unversioned octave, octave-atlas, or octave-ref package must be installed. Essentially, those features used at run-time which don't have a version somewhere in the file path are included in these packages.

Homebrew

Homebrew is a package management system that simplifies the installation of software on macOS. It is a free/open source software project to simplify installation of other free/open source software. It is similar in aim and function to MacPorts and Fink. It was written by Max Howell and has gained popularity in the Ruby on Rails community and earned praise for its extensibility.

Install GNU Octave using Homebrew:

First, install Homebrew:

• Install Xcode via the Mac App Store.
  • Install the command line tools by xcode-select --install.
• Follow Homebrew's installation instructions.

To install Octave, update to the latest package definitions with brew update, and then install Octave.

First we ensure brew itself has the latest definitions:

brew update

Then, we install Octave :

brew install octave

The default charting package in Octave is straight qt. However, on the Mac gnuplot often works better. To switch to gnuplot, place the following text in your ~/.octaverc file:

setenv('GNUTERM','qt')
graphics_toolkit("gnuplot")

Note: If brew complains about:

Linking /usr/local/Cellar/ghostscript/9.14...
Error: Could not symlink share/ghostscript/Resource
/usr/local/share/ghostscript is not writable.

This is telling you the user permissions for ghostscript are not setup in a way that your user profile can use. You need to change those permissions to your user profile. The following command will repair the issue:

sudo chown -R `whoami` /usr/local/share/ghostscript
brew link --overwrite ghostscript

Then run the brew install command again for octave.

Note: If brew complains about not having a formula for octave, the following command should fix it:

brew tap --repair

The command below upgrades Octave and its dependencies to the latest Homebrew-supported versions:

brew update && brew upgrade octave

Octave has many dependencies which will be downloaded and installed prior to Octave. The entire installation process can take a few hours, but precompiled binary packages called 'bottles' are available with default options for Octave and many of its dependencies.

Octave has a built-in GUI (developed using Qt lib) installed by default so that gnuplot and other tools can use it directly. This GUI is always installed when installing Octave using Homebrew.

In case of trouble, see the Homebrew Troubleshooting Guide, which assists in diagnosing problems and craft useful bug reports. Bugs may be reported at Homebrew-core's issue tracker.

MacPorts

MacPorts, formerly called DarwinPorts, is a is a free and open-source package management system that simplifies the installation of software on the macOS and Darwin operating systems. It is similar in aim and function to Fink and the BSDs' ports collections, DarwinPorts was started in 2002 as part of the OpenDarwin project, with the involvement of a number of Apple Inc. employees including Landon Fuller, Kevin Van Vechten, and Jordan Hubbard.

Install GNU Octave using MacPorts:

• Follow the instruction given at the MacPorts website.
• Update your installation by running sudo port selfupdate and sudo port upgrade outdated in the terminal.
• Run sudo port install octave.

Spack

Spack is a package management tool that supports the installation of multiple versions of software on macOS and other operating systems. It is a free/open source software project to simplify installation of other software. It is similar in aim and function to MacPorts and Homebrew. It was created by Todd Gamblin and is currently being updated and developed by a large list of contributors (mainly via GitHub).

Install GNU Octave using Spack:

First, install Spack:

• Install Xcode via the Mac App Store.
  • Install the command line tools by xcode-select --install.
• Follow Spack tutorial.

To install Octave, first we ensure that Spack itself has the latest definitions, by going to the local Spack repository (develop branch) folder and running the command:

git pull

Then, we install the latest version of Octave:

spack install octave

To use Octave we need to first load the package:

spack load octave

Octave has many dependencies which will be downloaded and installed prior to Octave. The entire installation process can take up to a few hours.

In case of trouble, please visit the Spack repo issues list, and browse through Octave related issues by writing in the filters box:

is:issue octave

Create a launcher app with AppleScript

• Open the "AppleScript Editor" application
• write the following text in the editor window:

tell application "Terminal"
 do script "/path/to/octave; exit"
end tell

or if Octave is in your default path:

tell application "Terminal"
 do script "`which octave`; exit"
end tell

or if you wish to start the GUI by default, without a terminal:

do shell script "/path/to/octave --force-gui"

(e.g. Homebrew installs Octave to '/usr/local/bin/octave' by default)

• Select "Save as ..." from the "File" menu
• In the menu that appears, select "Application" from the "File format" menu, then navigate to the "Applications" folder and save your script there as "Octave.app"

To change the application icon

• Open this link in a web browser, right-click and select "copy image".
• Select "Octave.app" in the Finder, then press command-i to bring up the file info dialog.
• In the file info dialog, select the icon (in the top left) and press command-v to paste the Octave icon over it.

See also

• Octave for macOS (outdated) contains old installation instructions.