Installing on Mac. With this release, we’re introducing a new way to access the Xcode 10 preview support in Visual Studio for Mac. From now on, you’ll be able to access all the necessary bits for Xcode 10 within the IDE, through an updater channel named “Xcode 10 Preview”. MonoDevelop is a full-featured integrated development environment (IDE) for mono using Gtk#. The MonoDevelop core is also the foundation for Visual Studio for Mac. Feel free to file bugs against Visual Studio for Mac here as well. Visual Studio for Mac enables the creation of.NET Core solutions, providing the back-end services to your client solutions. Code, debug, and test these cloud services simultaneously with your client solutions for increased productivity.

Installation

1. Download Visual Studio Code for macOS.
2. Double-click on the downloaded archive to expand the contents.
3. Drag Visual Studio Code.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the Launchpad.
4. 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 (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+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.

To manually add VS Code to your path, you can 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.

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.

Visual Studio For Mac Tutorial

Preferences menu

You can configure VS Code through settings, color themes, and custom keybindings and you will often see mention of the File > Preferences menu group. 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.'

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.

Develop apps and games for iOS, Android,
and web using .NET

Code in C#, F#, Razor, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, XAML, and XML

With the power of Roslyn, Visual Studio for Mac brings IntelliSense to your fingertips. IntelliSense describes APIs as you type and uses auto-completion to increase the speed and accuracy of how you write code.

Quick Info tool tips let you inspect API definitions, squiggly lines in the editor highlight issues, in real time as you type.

Use the Visual Studio debugger to quickly find and fix bugs across languages.

The Visual Studio for Mac debugger lets you step inside your code by setting Breakpoints, Step Over statements, Step Into and Out of functions, and inspect the current state of the code stack through powerful visualizations.

As your project grows, chances are, you’ll find yourself restructuring and refactoring code that you or someone else wrote earlier. That’s a whole lot easier when Visual Studio for Mac takes care of the heavy lifting for you.

Visual Studio For Mac Uninstall

The Visual Studio for Mac editor supports powerful built-in refactoring options such as Extract Method and Rename, accessible via the Quick Actions menu.

Manage your code in Git or SVN repos hosted by any provider, including GitHub and Azure DevOps. Review diffs, stage files, and make commits from inside Visual Studio for Mac.

Visual Studio For Mac Not Building

Choose the development environment that is right for you. With Visual Studio on both macOS and Windows, you can share your C# and F# projects seamlessly with your team using either OS.

Create cross-platform apps targeting Android and iOS using Xamarin

Build, manage, and deploy cloud apps that scale to Azure

Create and debug cross platform games and 3D real time applications with Unity

Customers using Xamarin with Visual Studio for Mac

Launch a professional environment tailored to the Mac, free for most non-enterprise users