You'll need to have a free developer account to login and access the downloads. Download the free command line tools for Xcode from Apple.

If you're on either one of these operating systems, then head over to the Apple Developers website. For OS X Lion (10.7) Or Mountain Lion (10.8) The process slightly varies depending on your version of OS X (must be running at least Lion, version 10.7.3) and is outlined below. However, Xcode takes up quite a bit of disk space (over 4 GB), and furthermore, it's kind of pointless to install Xcode if you're only going to use the command line developer tools.įortunately, there's an easy way to install these developer tools without Xcode, saving you lots of disk space by only installing what you need. The command line developer tools are automatically installed if you install Xcode. Aside from developers, the command line tools can offer benefits to normal users as well, like the ability to purge RAM for better performance. OS X is built upon a UNIX foundation, which grants you access to the benefits that UNIX offers, including the standard toolkit (make, gcc, clang, git, perl, svn, size, strings, id, and a lot more) via the command line developer tools, which are an essential if you're a developer.

Mac install xcode command line