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Visual Studio for Mac documentation. Learn how to use Visual Studio for Mac to develop apps and games for iOS, Android, and web using.NET. Finally I used the method by installing it using the two 'brew' command as described here as I have brew already installed on my Mac anyway. This finally worked! The rest then was easy as Visual Studio for Mac supports Ligatures fonts out of the box: Open Visual Studio for Mac; Open Preferences Fonts; Choose Fira Core Retina as the editor font.
You can use this guide to uninstall each component in Visual Studio for Mac individually by navigating to the relevant section, or you can use the scripts provided in the Uninstall Script section to uninstall everything.
Note
This information will only remove Visual Studio 2019 or 2017 for Mac from your machine. to uninstall Visual Studio Code, see this issue for details.
Uninstall Script
There are two scripts that can be used to uninstall Visual Studio for Mac and all components for your machine:
The following sections provide information on downloading and using the scripts.
Visual Studio for Mac and Xamarin script
You can uninstall Visual Studio and Xamarin components in one go by using the uninstall script.
This uninstall script contains most of the commands that you will find in the article. There are three main omissions from the script and are not included due to possible external dependencies. To remove this, jump to the relevant section below and remove them manually:
To run the script, do the following steps:
Right-click on the script and select Save As to save the file on your Mac.
Open Terminal and change the working directory to where the script was downloaded:
Make the script executable and the run it with sudo:
Finally, delete the uninstall script and remove Visual Studio for Mac from the dock (if it's there).
.NET Core script
The uninstall script for .NET Core is located in the dotnet cli repo
To run the script, do the following steps:
Right-click on the script and select Save As to save the file on your Mac.
Open Terminal and change the working directory to where the script was downloaded:
Make the script executable and the run it with sudo:
Finally, delete the .NET Core uninstall script.
Uninstall Visual Studio for Mac
The first step in uninstalling Visual Studio from a Mac is to locate Visual Studio.app in the /Applications directory and drag it to the Trash Can. Alternatively, right-click and select Move to Trash as illustrated in the following image:
Deleting this app bundle removes Visual Studio for Mac, even though there may be other files related to Xamarin still on the file system.
To remove all traces of Visual Studio for Mac, run the following commands in Terminal:
You may also want to remove the following directory containing various Xamarin files and folders. However, before you do you should be aware that this directory contains the Android signing keys. For more information refer to the section Uninstalling Android SDK and Java SDK:
Uninstall Mono SDK (MDK)
Mono is an open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework and is used by all Xamarin Products—Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android, and Xamarin.Mac to allow development of these platforms in C#.
Warning
There are other applications outside of Visual Studio for Mac that also use Mono, such as Unity.Be sure that there are no other dependencies on Mono before uninstalling it.
To remove the Mono Framework from a machine, run the following commands in Terminal:
Uninstall Xamarin.Android
There are a number of items required for the installation and use of Xamarin.Android, such as the Android SDK and Java SDK.
Use the following commands to remove Xamarin.Android:
Uninstall Android SDK and Java SDK
The Android SDK is required for development of Android applications. To completely remove all parts of the Android SDK, locate the file at ~/Library/Developer/Xamarin/ and move it to Trash.
Warning
You should be aware that Android signing keys that are generated by Visual Studio for Mac are located in ~/Library/Developer/Xamarin/Keystore. Make sure to back these up appropriately, or avoid removing this directory if you wish to keep your keystore.
The Java SDK (JDK) does not need to be uninstalled, as it is already pre-packaged as part of Mac OS X / macOS.
Uninstall Android AVD
Warning
There are other applications outside of Visual Studio for Mac that also use Android AVD and these additional android components, such as Android Studio.Removing this directory may cause projects to break in Android Studio.
To remove any Android AVDs and additional Android components use the following command:
To remove only the Android AVDs use the following command:
Uninstall Xamarin.iOS
Xamarin.iOS allows iOS application development using C# or F# with Visual Studio for Mac.
Use the following commands in Terminal to remove all Xamarin.iOS files from a file system:
Uninstall Xamarin.Mac
Xamarin.Mac can be removed from your machine using the following two commands to eradicate the product and license from your Mac respectively:
Uninstall Workbooks and Inspector
Starting with 1.2.2, Xamarin Workbooks & Inspector can be uninstalled from a terminal by running:
For older versions, you need to manually remove the following artifacts:
- Delete the Workbooks app at
'/Applications/Xamarin Workbooks.app' - Delete the Inspector app at
'Applications/Xamarin Inspector.app' - Delete the add-ins:
'~/Library/Application Support/XamarinStudio-6.0/LocalInstall/Addins/Xamarin.Interactive'and'~/Library/Application Support/XamarinStudio-6.0/LocalInstall/Addins/Xamarin.Inspector' - Delete Inspector and supporting files here:
/Library/Frameworks/Xamarin.Interactive.frameworkand/Library/Frameworks/Xamarin.Inspector.framework
Uninstall the Xamarin Profiler
Uninstall the Visual Studio Installer
Use the following commands to remove all traces of the Xamarin Universal Installer:
Uninstall Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Preview
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Preview was launched as a separate preview, allowing you to continue to work with your Visual Studio 2017 for Mac install side-by-side.
Now that Visual Studio 2019 for Mac has been released, you can now safely remove the Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Preview application.
To uninstall the preview application bundle, select Visual Studio (Preview) from your Applications folder and click Move to Trash, as depicted in the following image:
You can also remove the Preview plist file with the following command:
See also
-->Developer Community |System Requirements |Compatibility |Distributable Code |Documentation |Blogs |Servicing
Click the button to download the latest version of Visual Studio 2019 for Mac. For information on the system requirements see the see Mac System Requirementsand Mac Platform Targeting and Compatibility guides.
For instructions on installing and updating Visual Studio 2019 for Mac, see theInstall Visual Studio for Mac guide.
To learn more about other related downloads, see the Downloads page.
What's New in Visual Studio 2019 for Mac
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Releases
- January 20, 2021 - Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.6
- January 12, 2021 - Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.5
- December 15, 2020 - Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.4
- December 1, 2020 - Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.3
- November 24, 2020 - Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.2
- November 19, 2020 - Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.1
- November 10, 2020 - Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Blog Posts
The Visual Studio Blog is the official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team. You can find in-depth information about the Visual Studio 2019 for Mac releases in the following posts:
Release Highlights
- Visual Studio for Mac 8.8 adds preview support for Custom .NET Core templates added with
dotnet new(Preview features can be enabled in Preferences > Other > Preview Features). - Visual Studio for Mac 8.8 adds support for debugging Blazor WebAssembly projects.
- Visual Studio for Mac 8.8 adds support for accessing Azure DevOps NuGet package sources using the signed in account without the need to use a personal access token (PAT).
- Visual Studio for Mac 8.8 now supports running on the macOS Big Sur developer preview. See Known Issues for additional information.
- Visual Studio for Mac 8.8.3 or newer now has full accessibility support enabled by default.
- We added functionality to Visual Studio for Mac to warn users when low disk space will degrade the experience.
Known Issues
Refer to the Known Issues section.
Feedback and Suggestions
We would love to hear from you! You can report a problem through the Report a Problem option in Visual Studio for Mac IDE.You can track your feedback, including suggestions, in the Developer Community portal.
Release Notes
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.6 (8.8.6.15)
released January 20, 2021
General
- We fixed several reliability issues.
Installer
- We fixed an issue where downloading the .NET Core SDKs failed.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.5 (8.8.5.18)
released January 12, 2021
Web and Azure
- We updated .NET Core SDKs to 5.0.102 and 3.1.405.
Xamarin
- We added support for Xcode 12.3.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.4 (8.8.4.30)
released December 15, 2020
General
- We fixed several issues with reliability and performance.
Debugger
- We fixed an issue where catchpoints didn't work with .NET Core.
- We fixed an issue where Debugging was not working with XCode 12.
Shell and Tools
- We fixed an issue where the Welcome screen close button was invisible on macOS Big Sur.
- We fixed an issue where the build output was shown instead of the error window when clicking on an error inside the status bar.
Web and Azure
- We fixed an issue with debugging Azure Functions locally.
- We updated .NET Core SDK to 5.0.101.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.3 (8.8.3.16)
released December 1, 2020
General
- We fixed several issues with reliability and performance.
- Under certain circumstances it was not possible to enable full accessibility support using VoiceOver. We enabled full accessibility support by default and updated the Visual Studio for Mac accessibility documentation.
Version Control
- We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac got stuck at 'Updating version control repository' after switching branches.
How To Install Visual Studio On Mac
Web and Azure
- We fixed an issue where publishing ASP.NET Core 5.0 projects to Azure failed with an 'HTTP Error 500.31 - ANCM Failed to Find Native Dependencies' error.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.2 (8.8.2.41)
released November 24, 2020
General
- We updated .NET Core to 3.1.404.
- We updated the F# compiler to 5.0.
Debugger
- We fixed an issue blocking operations when multiple watches are selected in the watch tool window.
- We fixed several issues causing the wrong value to be copied or pasted within the watch tool window.
- We fixed an issue where it was not possible to rename a watch while debugging.
Installer
- We fixed an issue where the Installer was not able to download .NET Core and the installation failed.
Shell and Tools
- We fixed an issue where the Errors tool window didn't remember toolbar button settings.
Source Code Editing
- We fixed an issue where F# 4.6 language features don't work on VS for Mac (Stable or Preview).
- We fixed an issue where member _.method in F # was not recognized correctly.
- We fixed build issues causing FS0010 errors with new F# Web projects.
- We fixed an issue where Find References is not working.
- We fixed an issue with the Rename functionality not working correctly.
- We fixed an issue with missing support for FSharp.Core 4.7.
- We fixed various issues with GB18030 encoding support.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.1 (8.8.1.37)
released November 19, 2020
General
- We fixed several issues with reliability and performance.
Debugger
- We fixed an issue where the Exception window appears outside of the desktop.
- We fixed an issue where the Set Next Statement command failed with an error depending on where the editor caret was placed.
Shell and Tools
- We fixed an issue where loading a solution failed after closing VS for Mac in full screen mode on Big Sur.
- We fixed the code search in the assembly viewer.
Web and Azure
- We fixed an issue where loading Blazor Web Assembly projects failed if the project path contained spaces.
Xamarin
- We fixed an accessibility issue in the XAML Previewer where a decorative image was erroneously being anounced as 'image' by VoiceOver.
- We fixed an accessibility issue in the XAML Previewer where unnecessary content was being announced by VoiceOver when navigating to the 'Get started with XAML hot reload' link.
- We added support for Xcode 12.2.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8 (8.8.0.2913)
released November 10, 2020
Note
This release of Visual Studio for Mac now supports running on the macOS Big Sur developer beta builds. If you're already on Big Sur and can't use the updater, visit the Visual Studio for Mac website and download the installer.
New Features
Debug Blazor WebAssembly projects
Visual Studio for Mac now includes full support for debugging Blazor WebAssembly projects, giving you the option to set breakpoints, watches, navigate your code using step and skip commands, and more.
For more information on debugging in Visual Studio for Mac, see Debugging with Visual Studio for Mac.
Web and Azure
- We added support for .NET 5 preview 8.
- We added integrated support for accessing NuGet Azure DevOps package sources using the signed in account without requiring a personal access token (PAT).
Bug Fixes
General
- We fixed several issues with reliability and performance.
- Under certain circumstances it was not possible to enable full accessibility support using VoiceOver. We enabled full accessibility support by default and updated the Visual Studio for Mac accessibility documentation.
Version Control
- We fixed an issue where Visual Studio for Mac got stuck at 'Updating version control repository' after switching branches.
How To Install Visual Studio On Mac
Web and Azure
- We fixed an issue where publishing ASP.NET Core 5.0 projects to Azure failed with an 'HTTP Error 500.31 - ANCM Failed to Find Native Dependencies' error.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.2 (8.8.2.41)
released November 24, 2020
General
- We updated .NET Core to 3.1.404.
- We updated the F# compiler to 5.0.
Debugger
- We fixed an issue blocking operations when multiple watches are selected in the watch tool window.
- We fixed several issues causing the wrong value to be copied or pasted within the watch tool window.
- We fixed an issue where it was not possible to rename a watch while debugging.
Installer
- We fixed an issue where the Installer was not able to download .NET Core and the installation failed.
Shell and Tools
- We fixed an issue where the Errors tool window didn't remember toolbar button settings.
Source Code Editing
- We fixed an issue where F# 4.6 language features don't work on VS for Mac (Stable or Preview).
- We fixed an issue where member _.method in F # was not recognized correctly.
- We fixed build issues causing FS0010 errors with new F# Web projects.
- We fixed an issue where Find References is not working.
- We fixed an issue with the Rename functionality not working correctly.
- We fixed an issue with missing support for FSharp.Core 4.7.
- We fixed various issues with GB18030 encoding support.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8.1 (8.8.1.37)
released November 19, 2020
General
- We fixed several issues with reliability and performance.
Debugger
- We fixed an issue where the Exception window appears outside of the desktop.
- We fixed an issue where the Set Next Statement command failed with an error depending on where the editor caret was placed.
Shell and Tools
- We fixed an issue where loading a solution failed after closing VS for Mac in full screen mode on Big Sur.
- We fixed the code search in the assembly viewer.
Web and Azure
- We fixed an issue where loading Blazor Web Assembly projects failed if the project path contained spaces.
Xamarin
- We fixed an accessibility issue in the XAML Previewer where a decorative image was erroneously being anounced as 'image' by VoiceOver.
- We fixed an accessibility issue in the XAML Previewer where unnecessary content was being announced by VoiceOver when navigating to the 'Get started with XAML hot reload' link.
- We added support for Xcode 12.2.
Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8 (8.8.0.2913)
released November 10, 2020
Note
This release of Visual Studio for Mac now supports running on the macOS Big Sur developer beta builds. If you're already on Big Sur and can't use the updater, visit the Visual Studio for Mac website and download the installer.
New Features
Debug Blazor WebAssembly projects
Visual Studio for Mac now includes full support for debugging Blazor WebAssembly projects, giving you the option to set breakpoints, watches, navigate your code using step and skip commands, and more.
For more information on debugging in Visual Studio for Mac, see Debugging with Visual Studio for Mac.
Web and Azure
- We added support for .NET 5 preview 8.
- We added integrated support for accessing NuGet Azure DevOps package sources using the signed in account without requiring a personal access token (PAT).
Bug Fixes
Debugger
- We fixed an issue where the debugger would prefer an imported class over a local variable with the same name.
- We fixed a potential crash/hang after terminating the debugger.
- We fixed an issue where local variables were not evaluated when debugging a Blazor application with .NET 5.
Project System
- We fixed an issue that resulted in an empty properties pad for files when loading AddIn projects.
- We fixed an issue that prevented users from canceling a solution load operation.
- We fixed an issue where the Android build process never stops.
- We fixed an issue where renaming a file with 'Show All Files' enabled in the Solution window added the file twice and might have caused a hang.
- We fixed an issue with VS for Mac setting a different FrameworkSDKRoot.
- We fixed an issue where creating a new project folder with a single character failed with an error.
- We updated MSBuild to 16.8 RTM.
Shell and Tools
- We increased the speed of the find in files functionality.
- We fixed an issue causing erroneous exceptions to be logged when deleting unsaved files from a project.
- We fixed an issue resulting in multiple searches and unresponsiveness in the search experience.
- We fixed an issue where Visual Studio is unable to find files/classes included into a multi-target SDK style project.
- We fixed an issue where the directory path for find in files was not set correctly.
- We fixed an issue that prevented users drom opening assemblies in the Assembly Browser.
- We fixed an issue that caused files to open in Visual Studio Code instead of in the hex editor when choosing to open in the hex editor.
- We improved the performance of the Assembly Viewer.
- We have ported the Assembly Browser to the new Editor.
- We have reimplemented the Errors pad and moved the build output to a separate pad.
- We have improved overall performance and reliability.
- We replaced the 'Pad' terminology with 'Tool Window' throughout the IDE and updated the top-level View menu.
- We fixed an issue where the content of the 'Reference' dialog was not announced in proper sequence with VoiceOver.
- We fixed a potential hang in the Assembly Browser.
- We fixed an issue with encoding inside the integrated Terminal.
- We fixed an issue where 'Find' in the 'Replace in Files' dialog replaced the found text.
- We fixed an issue where Searching in a Directory failed after the second use.
- We updated NuGet to 5.8 RC.
- We fixed an issue where it was not possible to type (special) characters in the VS console while pressing the option-key.
- We fixed an issue where alerts were not clickable with the mouse on macOS Big Sur.
Source Code Editing
- The F# editor and language service have been updated to use the same backend as Visual Studio (Windows). This fixes a number of issues previously reported on Developer Community including:
- F# multiply operator as a function wrongly affects color of code after.
- F# 4.7 language features don't work.
- Undo doesn't work.
- Three double quotation marks are placed instead of two.
- F# 4.7 isn't supported.
- Editor fails on matching quote insertion.
- We fixed an issue causing the default key binding for 'Navigate To...' to no longer work with the French keyboard.
- We fixed a problem where new F# projects would not restore and build due to the FSharp.Core NuGet package being unavailable.
- We have fixed an issue where an Enum could not be used as a nullable type in generic interfaces.
- We fixed an issue where Design-time error highlighting and Quick Fix suggestions stopped working.
- We fixed an issue with Red underlines not being shown on syntax errors.
- We fixed an issue where inserting code snippets into a C# file failed.
- We fixed an issue where EventHandler completion didn't work.
- We fixed an issue with YAML support.
Visual Studio Mac Extensions
Test Tools
- We fixed an issue where Running unit tests from the context menu was way slower than from the Unit Tests pad.
Version Control
- We fixed an issue where there was odd behavior when copying files under source control.
- We fixed an issue that could cause hangs when using Git version control.
- We fixed an issue causing version control commits to fail if Git reported
fatal: LF would be replaced by CRLF. - We fixed an issue that disabled view history when a file that's not tracked or a project is selected in the solution pad.
- We fixed an issue where Git integration on Visual Studio for Mac is not working.
- We fixed an issue where deleting a file from project rolls back messing up the Source control.
- We fixed an issue where openinig a project or switching branches on console does not always update the current branch in the project browser.
- We fixed an issue that could result in a
doesn't point at a valid Git repository or workdir.error message when working with Git. - We fixed an issue where stashing errors were not handeled properly.
- we fixed an issue with broken selection buttons in the 'Review and Commit' view.
- We fixed an issue where the Git configuration dialog blocked use of the IDE and could not be closed.
- We fixed an issue where the status of a copied then pasted file was not updated properly.
- We fixed an issue where an error was shown after copying a file if Git was not installed.
- We fixed an issue where deleting a new file under a newly added folder deleted the empty folder as well.
Web and Azure
- We fixed an issue where a new F# test project will display errors and warnings.
- We fixed an issue with solution file generation that caused a compatibility problem with Visual Studio on Windows.
- We fixed an issue where .razor files would incorrectly show a 'Using directive is unnecessary' error.
- We fixed an issue where IntelliSense for classes from a new Razor class library project were not available in .razor files.
- We fixed an issue preventing Azure subscriptions being found when publishing to Azure Publish to Azure.
- We fixed an issue where Azure subscriptions were not found.
- We fixed a crash in the Razor editor.
- We fixed an issue with breakpoints not hitting when debugging a Blazor WebAssembly Application.
- We have added a preview support for Custom .NET Core templates added with
dotnet new. - We fixed an issue where a Blazor WebAssembly project was not recognized as such with .NET 5 and the Browser selection was missing.
- We fixed an issue where an invalid development certificate caused an unrecoverable hang.
- We fixed an issue where IntelliSense shows the OpenAPI client after the OpenAPI service was removed.
- We updated .NET Core to 5.0.100 and 3.1.403.
Xamarin
How Good Is Visual Studio For Mac
- We fixed an issue that erroneously changed the simulator to iPad Pro for the designer if Xcode was used to open and add layouts to the Storyboard file.
- We fixed an issue where users were unable to load Storyboards in Visual Studio for Mac.
- We fixed an issue that resulted in Storyboard errors.
- We fixed an issue where adding an Apple account for Xamarin.iOS is broken.
- We fixed an issue resulting in failure to add an Apple developer account with two step authentication.
- We fixed an issue preventing pairing with Visual Studio.
- We fixed an issue where the Storyboard editor would not start.
- We updated the Android SDK Tools path to support the new 'cmdline-tools' path.
- Hot reload updated the minimum required Xamarin.Forms version to 4.6.0.923 when using incremental.
- We fixed an issue where Xamarin Forms Hot Reload caused the iOS Simulator to come to foreground.
- We fixed an issue with the iOS Simulator Window stealing focus multiple times.
- We fixed an issue with Vector Images not appearing in Assets.xcassets.
- We fixed an issue where the target framework of a Xamarin.Mac full framework project kept switching back to Xamarin.Mac Modern.
- We fixed an issue where VS for Mac was removing some default properties from Xamarin.Android projects.
- The Android SDK manager will now prompt to install Android API 28 if it is not already installed to ensure compatibility with the Xamarin.Forms templates.
- We added support for Xcode 12.1.
How To Install Visual Studio For Mac
Other
- We improved startup performance of the IDE.
- We improved the performance of closing a solution.
- We fixed an issue where vstool would not return the exact id of an extension which can then be used for disabling/enabling the extension.
Is Visual Studio For Mac Good
Known Issues
The following is a list of all existing known issues in Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8:
- After installing the latest .NET 5 SDK, developers of .NET Core 3.1 apps might see an error indicating 'The ASP.NET Core developer certificate is in an invalid state.'. Running
dotnet dev-certs https --cleanthendotnet dev-certs https --trustfrom the Terminal will fix the issue. - Loading Blazor WebAssembly projects with .NET 5.0 RC1 is not yet supported.
- In rare cases, it's possible to be up to date with everything but the .NET Core 3.1.300 SDK. If you enter into this configuration and update to .NET Core 3.1.300 using the updater, the notification to update the .NET Core SDK will not disappear until the IDE is restarted.
