When using the vanilla EmacsforOsx binary, a useful site for setting, at least, Emacs server and Emacs client applications is Configuring Emacs on Mac OS X. If you’ve used Emacs before and already have your own Emacs initialization file, then Emacs.app is likely a better choice.Īs compared to Aquamacs, Emacs.app is more traditional in its approach, prefers a single frame, and is more likely to work with existing emacs initialization files. Many find it to be more Mac-like than Emacs.app. If you are a Mac user new to Emacs, many people find Aquamacs to be a good choice. X11 Emacs is the “original” emacs running under X11 (installed by default in recent versions of Mac OS X)

As of Emacs 23, Carbon Emacs has been deprecated in favor of Emacs.app. Note that Emacs.app, GNU Emacs/Cocoa, and GNU Emacs/nextstep refer to the same thing.Ĭarbon is the C language API (developed by Apple) that lets applications written under OS 9 (or earlier) run under OS X. Aquamacs and Emacs.app (which was merged into the official Emacs as of Emacs-23) both run under Cocoa. However, there are other Emacs distributions geared towards macOS that include GUI support as well as other features that may make it a more appropriate choice for some, if not most people.Ĭocoa is the Objective-C API (originally developed by NeXT) that is used for native OS X applications (included in Emacs 23.2). On macOS 10.15 Catalina and higher, mg (previously known as microGNUemacs) is still included. Versions of macOS prior to 10.15 Catalina include a copy of GNU Emacs 22 without GUI support compiled in and thus Emacs is automatically available on all but the most recent versions of macOS via the terminal.

You can find precompiled versions of emacs and Emacs.app at. The official Emacs fully supports Mac OS X (along with GNU/Linux, Windows, DOS, and then some).

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