macOS Development Environment

Prerequisites

You will need the prerequisites below to build Brave on macOS 10.15+ and there are additional details in the Chromium build system requirements at https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/lkgr/docs/mac_build_instructions.md#system-requirements (do not follow any of the instructions after System Requirements):

• macOS SDK 15.4, as per https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:build/config/mac/mac_sdk.gni;l=50. This is bundled with Xcode 16.3, for example, as per https://xcodereleases.com.

• Git version 2.41 or higher.

• Node.js v24+ - brew install nvm and nvm install v24 && nvm alias default v24/* && nvm use default.

Other tips

• Make sure to disable Spotlight completely or enable privacy for the build directory (see System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy); otherwise, excessive indexing will slow the build.

Build Acceleration

Developers who work at Brave can find more information on remote build execution here

Build Configuration

Please refer to this document for information about configuring your .env for building Brave.

Opening a DMG that was flagged as damaged

Unlock the app using xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine Brave\ Browser\ Nightly.app.