Building Emacs

If installing on macOS, install emacs-app or emacs-mac-app from MacPorts. The latter version is the Yamamoto Mitsuharu version which provides native GUI support for macOS. However, since Emacs 23, native GUI support is now included in the standard GNU distribution (MacPorts emacs-app), but emacs-mac-app has additional enhancements for the Mac.

However, it can be useful to have an independently built version for those occasions when a MacPorts upgrade fails, leaving a broken environment where Emacs may not run. Fortunately there’s always vi or vim to fallback on, but if you prefer to use Emacs, you can create a minimal Emacs on macOS without installing many library dependencies, build from source with:

Installing GNU Emacs:

Download the latest Emacs version.

The configure options provide a working Emacs with minimal effort.

$ cd /usr/local/src
$ tar -xf ../emacs-29.4.tar.xz
$ cd emacs-29.4
$ ./configure --without-makeinfo --with-gnutls=ifavailable
$ make
$ ./src/emacs

With Emacs 29.4 the --without-makeinfo option no longer exists. Worse it fails to build if makeinfo command does not exist. Install the texinfo package.

Download texinfo-7.2.tar.gz, extract and build:

$ cd /usr/local/src
$ tar -xf ../texinfo-7.2.tar.gz
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

See the excellent documentation in the root of the Emacs source, particularly the INSTALL and README files for more information.

You can also run make install (which installs under ./nextstep without using root/sudo) and then copy ./nextstep/Emacs.app to the /Applications folder and run it from there. However, Due to the extra security on newer versions of macOS you probably won’t be able to run it as Emacs.App and will need to execute emacs from the command line in the source folder as above. If you have an Apple developer account, see the ‘Code Signing’ section below.

See https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS for further details.

To configure the Emacs build to include GNU Mailutils;

first, build mailutils with the following arguments:

$ ./configure --disable-cxx --disable-python --disable-build-servers \
--without-readline

Build GnuTLS as described in the ‘Building GnuTLS’ section below, then configure Emacs with:

$ ./configure --with-gnutls --with-mailutils

Note: To rebuild a package using the same command line options as last passed to the ./configure command, run ./config.status --recheck. See makefile - How do you “echo” the last configure/make build –options within a source directory? - Stack Overflow.

You can also see how Emacs was built in a running Emacs with C-h v system-configuration-options.

Code Signing

After building Emacs and running making install (without sudo):

# Display your signing keys
security find-identity -p codesigning -v \
| awk '{ if (match($0, "\".*\"")) print substr($0, RSTART, RLENGTH); }'

cd nextstep
# Attempt to sign with the developer key using the developer ID from the
# awk output
codesign --force -s "Apple Development: Foo Bar (XXXXXXXXXX)" Emacs.app
# Response shows first subcomponent that also needs signing
  Emacs.app: replacing existing signature
  Emacs.app: code object is not signed at all
  In subcomponent: /usr/local/src/emacs-29.4/nextstep/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/Emacs.pdmp

# Sign all the components in the `libexec` folder
codesign --force -s "Apple Development: Foo Bar (XXXXXXXXXX)" Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/*
# Repeat the top level signing
codesign --force -s "Apple Development: Foo Bar (XXXXXXXXXX)" Emacs.app
# Optionally verify the signatures
codesign --verify --verbose Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/Emacs.pdmp
codesign --verify --verbose Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec/rcs2log
codesign --verify --verbose Emacs.app

# Copy to the Applications folder:
cp -a Emacs.app /Applications/

Try opening the application using Finder. It may take multiple attempts before macOS will allow the application to run. Thereafter it should be launchable as normal.

Building GnuTLS

Building GnuTLS is a non-trivial task on macOS. There are a number of nested dependencies and one or two traps along the way. You need to read the INSTALL.md distributed with GnuTLS at the very least.

Below are some of the solutions I found to succeed in a build. I cannot vouch for how appropriate or correct these solutions are.

If you have any problems, I would recommend examining the Portfiles for each of the MacPort installers, to assist in determining where to download packages from on the Internet, which versions may be appropriate and any patches that may need to be applied.

https://github.com/macports/macports-ports

Notes for packages which need to be built with specific ./configure options are listed in the following sub-sections.

– Frank Dean - 12 Feb 2025

libiconv

https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/libiconv/

./configure

pkgconfig

https://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/releases/

It’s good to build pkgconfig early on as other artifact builds use it. pkgconfig has a circular dependency with glib. You get around it by building with its own internal version of glib.

./configure --with-internal-glib 'CFLAGS=-Wno-int-conversion'

Version 0.29.2 may need patching. See MacPorts Portfile.

After install glib2, pkgconfig can be rebuilt using ./configure without any parameters.

gmp

https://gmplib.org/download/gmp/

./configure

ncurses

Optional dependency.

https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html

./configure --enable-widec  --disable-lib-suffixes  --enable-overwrite  \
--with-shared  --with-cxx-shared  --without-debug   --without-ada  \
--with-manpage-format=normal --enable-pc-files --disable-mixed-case

gettext

https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gettext/

./configure

coreutils

https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/

Optionally, so as to distinguish GNU coreutils from the BSD commands of the same name, prefix all the commands with g:

./configure --program-prefix=g

sed

https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/sed/

Optionally, so as to distinguish the GNU sed command from the BSD sed command, prefix the command with g:

./configure --program-prefix=g

bzip2

Optional dependency.

https://sourceware.org/bzip2/downloads.html

make
sudo make install

There doesn’t appear to be an uninstall script for bzip2.

libedit

Optional dependency.

https://thrysoee.dk/editline/

./configure

zlib

Optional dependency.

https://www.zlib.net/

./configure

pcre2

https://github.com/PCRE2Project/pcre2/releases

./configure

glib2

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/releases

Glib now needs Meson to build. See INSTALL.md in the root of the Glib source.

Download ninja-mac.zip Ninja which Meson depends on. Unzip the file and place the executable on your path. You’ll need to open the executable using finder to override system security before it can be used by Meson.

pip3 install --user meson
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/Library/Python/3.9/bin"
meson setup _build
meson compile -C _build
sudo meson install -C _build

Uninstall with:

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/Library/Python/3.9/bin"
sudo meson uninstall

Uninstall meson with:

pip3 uninstall meson

openssl

https://github.com/openssl/openssl/releases

./Configure
make
sudo make install

nettle

https://www.lysator.liu.se/~nisse/nettle/

Nettle must be compiled with GMP support to provide Libhogweed (nettle’s companion library).

./configure

libtasn1

https://www.gnu.org/software/libtasn1/

./configure

libxslt

Optional dependency.

https://download.gnome.org/sources/libxslt/

./configure --without-python --without-crypto

p11-kit

https://github.com/p11-glue/p11-kit/releases

./configure --without-trust-paths

expat

https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases

./configure

flex

Optional dependency.

https://github.com/westes/flex/releases

./configure

libsodium

Optional dependency.

https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium/releases

./configure

unbound

https://nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/

./configure

After building and installing:

sudo /usr/local/sbin/unbound-anchor -a /usr/local/etc/unbound/root.key

brotli

Optional dependency.

https://github.com/google/brotli

zstd

Optional dependency.

https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases

gnutls

https://www.gnupg.org/ftp/gcrypt/gnutls/

./configure --with-included-unistring --with-unbound-root-key-file=/usr/local/etc/unbound/root.key

jansson

Optional dependency.

https://github.com/akheron/jansson/releases

./configure

xz

Optional dependency of libxml2.

https://github.com/tukaani-project/xz/releases

./configure

libxml2

Optional dependency.

https://download.gnome.org/sources/libxml2/

./configure --enable-static --with-ftp --with-http --with-icu \
--with-lzma --with-zlib --without-python

sqlite3

Optional dependency.

https://www.sqlite.org/download.html

After downloading and extracting the autoconf version e.g. sqlite-autoconf-3480000.tar.gz, check the SAH3-256 hash with:

openssl sha3-256 sqlite3.c

./configure --enable-threadsafe --enable-dynamic-extensions \
--disable-readline --enable-editline AWK=/usr/bin/awk

webp

Optional dependency.

emacs

./configure \
--without-dbus --without-gconf --with-libgmp --with-gnutls \
--with-json=ifavailable --with-xml2 --with-modules

– Frank Dean - 12 Feb 2025

Related Topics: EmacsTips