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Installation

website/docs/gettingstarted/installation.mdx

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Installation

Supported Platforms

  • Windows 10/11 AMD64/ARM64
  • MacOS 10.15+ AMD64 for development, MacOS 10.13+ for release
  • MacOS 11.0+ ARM64
  • Linux AMD64/ARM64

Dependencies

Wails has a number of common dependencies that are required before installation:

  • Go 1.21+ (macOS 15+ requires Go 1.23.3+)
  • NPM (Node 15+)

Go

Download Go from the Go Downloads Page.

Ensure that you follow the official Go installation instructions. You will also need to ensure that your PATH environment variable also includes the path to your ~/go/bin directory. Restart your terminal and do the following checks:

  • Check Go is installed correctly: go version
  • Check "~/go/bin" is in your PATH variable: echo $PATH | grep go/bin

NPM

Download NPM from the Node Downloads Page. It is best to use the latest release as that is what we generally test against.

Run npm --version to verify.

Platform Specific Dependencies

You will also need to install platform specific dependencies:

mdx-code-block
import Tabs from "@theme/Tabs";
import TabItem from "@theme/TabItem";

<Tabs
  defaultValue="Windows"
  values={[
    { label: "Windows", value: "Windows" },
    { label: "MacOS", value: "MacOS" },
    { label: "Linux", value: "Linux" },
  ]}
>
  <TabItem value="MacOS">
    Wails requires that the xcode command line tools are installed. This can be
    done by running <code>xcode-select --install</code>.
  </TabItem>
  <TabItem value="Windows">
    Wails requires that the <a href="https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/">WebView2</a> runtime is installed. Some Windows installations will already have this installed. You can check using the <code>wails doctor</code> command.
  </TabItem>
  <TabItem value={"Linux"}>
    Linux requires the standard <code>gcc</code> build tools plus <code>libgtk3</code> and <code>libwebkit</code>. Rather than list a ton of commands for different distros, Wails can try to determine what the installation commands are for your specific distribution. Run <code>wails doctor</code> after installation to be shown how to install the dependencies. If your distro/package manager is not supported, please consult the <a href={"/docs/guides/linux-distro-support"}>Add Linux Distro</a> guide.
    
<strong>Note:</strong>

    If you are using latest Linux version (example: Ubuntu 24.04) and it is not supporting <code>libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev</code>, then you might encounter an issue in <code>wails doctor</code>: <code>libwebkit</code> not found. To resolve this issue you can install <code>libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev</code> and during your build use the tag <code>-tags webkit2_41</code>.
    


    After installing Wails via Go, ensure you run the following commands to update your PATH:
    

    <code>export PATH=$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin</code>
    

    <code>source ~/.bashrc</code> or <code>source ~/.zshrc</code>
  </TabItem>
</Tabs>

Optional Dependencies

  • UPX for compressing your applications.
  • NSIS for generating Windows installers.

Installing Wails

Run go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest to install the Wails CLI.

Note: If you get an error similar to this:

shell
....\Go\pkg\mod\github.com\wailsapp\wails\[email protected]\pkg\templates\templates.go:28:12: pattern all:ides/*: no matching files found

please check you have Go 1.18+ installed:

shell
go version

System Check

Running wails doctor will check if you have the correct dependencies installed. If not, it will advise on what is missing and help on how to rectify any problems.

The wails command appears to be missing?

If your system is reporting that the wails command is missing, make sure you have followed the Go installation guide correctly. Normally, it means that the go/bin directory in your User's home directory is not in the PATH environment variable. You will also normally need to close and reopen any open command prompts so that changes to the environment made by the installer are reflected at the command prompt.