• Supported version: 0.6.7

Then, install the downloaded npm package as follows (on Linux distributions you might need to use sudo): npm install -g Option 2: Use an installer. If you use a Mac or Windows computer, DMG and MSI installers are available from GitHub releases. How to Install PIP on Mac. Modern Mac systems come with Python and PIP already installed. However, this version of Python tends to be outdated and not the best choice for serious Python development. It's highly recommended that you install a more current version of Python and PIP.

While you don't need a fresh install of macOS to use OpenCore, some users prefer having a fresh slate with their boot manager upgrades.

To start we'll want to grab ourselves a copy of macOS. You can skip this and head to formatting the USB if you're just making a bootable OpenCore stick and not an installer. For everyone else, you can either download macOS from the App Store or with Munki's script.

# Downloading macOS: Modern OS

• This method allows you to download macOS 10.13 and newer, for 10.12 and older see Downloading macOS: Legacy OS

From a macOS machine that meets the requirements of the OS version you want to install, go directly to the App Store and download the desired OS release and continue to Setting up the installer.

For machines that need a specific OS release or can't download from the App Store, you can use the Munki's InstallInstallMacOS utility.

In order to run it, just copy and paste the below command in a terminal window:

As you can see, we get a nice list of macOS installers. If you need a particular versions of macOS, you can select it by typing the number next to it. For this example we'll choose 10:

• macOS 11, Big Sur Note: As this OS is quite new, there's still some issues with certain systems to resolve. For more information, see here: OpenCore and macOS 11: Big Sur
  • For first time users, we recommend macOS 10.15, Catalina
• Nvidia GPU Note: Reminder to verify whether your hardware support newer OSes, see Hardware Limitations

This is going to take a while as we're downloading the entire 8GB+ macOS installer, so it's highly recommended to read the rest of the guide while you wait.

Once finished, you'll find in your ~/macOS-Installer/ folder a DMG containing the macOS Installer, called Install_macOS_11.1-20C69.dmg for example. Mount it and you'll find the installer application.

• Note: We recommend to move the Install macOS.app into the /Applications folder, as we'll be executing commands from there.
• Note 2: Running Cmd+Shift+G in Finder will allow you to easily jump to ~/macOS-installer

From here, jump to Setting up the installer to finish your work.

# Downloading macOS: Legacy OS

• This method allows you to download much older versions of OS X, currently supporting all Intel versions of OS X(10.4 to current)

  • Legacy macOS: Offline method
    • 10.10-10.12 Supported
  • Legacy macOS: Online method(10.7-10.15 Supported)
    • 10.7-11 Supported
  • Legacy macOS: Disk Images
    • 10.4-10.6 Supported

# Setting up the installer

Now we'll be formatting the USB to prep for both the macOS installer and OpenCore. We'll want to use macOS Extended (HFS+) with a GUID partition map. This will create two partitions: the main MyVolume and a second called EFI which is used as a boot partition where your firmware will check for boot files.

• Note: By default, Disk Utility only shows partitions – press Cmd/Win+2 to show all devices (alternatively you can press the View button)
• Note 2: Users following 'Legacy macOS: Online method' section can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment

Next run the createinstallmedia command provided by Apple(opens new window). Note that the command is made for USB's formatted with the name MyVolume:

This will take some time so you may want to grab a coffee or continue reading the guide (to be fair you really shouldn't be following this guide step by step without reading the whole thing first).

You can also replace the createinstallmedia path with that of where your installer's located (same idea with the drive name).

Pulled from Apple's own site: How to create a bootable installer for macOS(opens new window)

# Legacy Setup

For systems not supporting UEFI boot, see below:

To start, you need the following:

• BootInstall_IA32.tool or BootInstall_X64.tool
  • This can be found in OpenCorePkg under /Utilties/LegacyBoot/
• Install USB(Created above)

Within your OpenCore build folder, navigate to Utilities/LegacyBoot. Here you'll find a file called BootInstall_ARCH.tool. What this does is install DuetPkg to your desired drive.

Now run this tool in terminal with sudo(This tool will likely fail otherwise):

This will give you a list of available disks, choose yours and you will be prompted to write a new MBR. Choose yes[y] and you'll be finished.

This will provide you with an EFI partition with either a bootia32 or bootx64 file

# Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment

Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment is simple – all you need to do is mount our EFI system partition. This is automatically made when we format with GUID but is unmounted by default, this is where our friend MountEFI(opens new window) comes in:

You'll notice that once we open the EFI partition, it's empty. This is where the fun begins.

# Now with all of this done, head to Setting up the EFI to finish up your work

If you want to develop for OBS, please visit our Discord and get to know the devs or have questions answered!

Also, if there is something in this guide you want to change/improve on, it is recommended that you talk about it with the devs in Discord or IRC first.

Please note that any install directions/packages for Linux/FreeBSD distributions listed as Unofficial means that they are community provided, and any support for those packages should be directed at the appropriate distro/package maintainers.

Table of Contents:

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux
  • Install
  • Build from source
• FreeBSD

Windows Install Directions:

Pre-built Windows versions can be found here: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases/

Install G++ On Mac

The full .exe installer and .zip contains OBS Studio 32bit, 64bit, Browser Source, and Intel® RealSense™ plugin. You will be prompted during install for the Browser Source and RealSense plugin to be installed if using the .exe installer, otherwise the components are included in the .zip.

The small .exe installer contains the base OBS Studio 32bit, 64bit, Intel® RealSense™ plugin, but does not contain the Browser Source plugin.

NOTE: If using the .zip method for either the full or small install and installing to a non-standard program location (i.e. outside Program Files), you will need to add the security group ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES to have full control over the main OBS Studio directory and sub-directories. Certain features may not function properly without these security rights (primarily, the ability to use game capture on UWP apps).

Windows Build Directions:

• Requirements for building OBS on Windows

  • Development packages of FFmpeg, x264, cURL, and mbedTLS.
  • Pre-built Windows dependencies for VS2019 can be found here:
    • VS2019: https://obsproject.com/downloads/dependencies2019.zip
  • Qt5 (Grab the MSVC package for your version of Visual Studio)
  • We currently deploy with Qt 5.15.2
  • CEF Wrapper 3770 (x64, x86)
  • Windows version of CMake (3.16 or higher, latest preferred)
  • Windows version of Git (Git binaries must exist in path)
  • Windows 10 SDK (minimum 10.0.19041.0). Latest SDK

• Installation Procedure

  • Clone the repository and submodules:

  • If you do not know what submodules are, or you are not using Git from the command line, PLEASE make sure to fetch the submodules too.

  • Create one or more of the following subdirectories within the cloned repository for building: release, debug, and build (suffixed with or without 32/64 to specify architecture). They are excluded from the repo in .gitignore for the sake of building, so they are safe to create an use within the repository base directory.

  • Run cmake-gui, and set the following fields:
  • In 'where is the source code', enter in the repo directory (example: D:/obs).

  • In 'where to build the binaries', enter the repo directory path with the 'build' subdirectory (example: D:/obs/build).

  • Set the following variables. You can set them in cmake-gui, or you can set them as Windows Environment Variables to persist across configurations.

  • Required

    • DepsPath

    DepsPath is the path to folder containing the dependencies, not including Qt. Set this to the win32 or win64 directory from the Pre-built dependencies package that you downloaded earlier.
    For example, if you extracted the dependencies .zip to C:obs-deps, DepsPath should be one of these:

    • C:obs-depswin32
    • C:obs-depswin64

    If you want to specify both 32 and 64 bit dependencies to avoid changing the variable between builds, you can instead set DepsPath32 and DepsPath64 like so:

    • DepsPath32: C:obs-depswin32

    • DepsPath64: C:obs-depswin64

    • QTDIR

    QTDIR is the path to the Qt install directory. The OBS UI is built by default, which requires Qt. Set the CMake boolean variable DISABLE_UI to TRUE if you don't want the GUI and this is no longer required. Can be optionally suffixed with 32 or 64 to specify target arch.

    NOTE: Make sure to download Qt prebuilt components for your version of MSVC (32 or 64 bit).

    Boot el capitan in 32 bit mode. Example Qt directories you would use if you installed Qt to D:Qt would usually look something like this:

    • QTDIR32=D:Qt5.15.2msvc2019 (32-bit)
    • QTDIR64=D:Qt5.15.2msvc2019_64 (64-bit)
    • CEF_ROOT_DIR

    CEF_ROOT_DIR is the path to an extracted CEF Wrapper. We provide a custom prebuilt wrapper to simplify the build process. This custom build includes access to hardware acceleration and additional codecs. This enables Browser Source and Custom Browser Docks.

    Be sure to also enable the CMake flag BUILD_BROWSER otherwise this will do nothing

  • Optional

    • VIRTUALCAM_GUID - Set to any random GUID value. This must be set to build the Virtual Camera features.

    (If these components below share the same directory as DepsPath, they do not need to be individually specified.)

    • FFmpegPath - Path to just FFmpeg include directory.
    • x264Path - Path to just x264 include directory.
    • curlPath - Path to just cURL include directory.

  • INFORMATIONAL NOTE: Search paths and search order for base dependency library/binary files, relative to their include directories:

    Library files

    • ./lib
    • ./lib32 (if 32bit)
    • ./lib64 (if 64bit)
    • ./lib
    • ./lib32 (if 32bit)
    • ./lib64 (if 64bit)

    Binary files:

    • ./bin
    • ./bin32 (if 32bit)
    • ./bin64 (if 64bit)
    • ./bin
    • ./bin32 (if 32bit)
    • ./bin64 (if 64bit)

  • In cmake-gui, press 'Configure' and select the generator that fits to your installed VS Version:
    Visual Studio 16 2019, or their 64bit equivalents if you want to build the 64bit version of OBS

    • NOTE: If you need to change your dependencies from a build already configured, you will need to uncheck COPIED_DEPENDENCIES and run Configure again.

  • If you did not set up Environment Variables earlier you can now configure the DepsPath and if necessary the x264, FFmpeg and cUrl path in the cmake-gui.

  • In cmake-gui, press 'Generate' to generate Visual Studio project files in the 'build' subdirectory.

  • Open obs-studio.sln from the subdirectory you specified under 'where to build the binaries' (e.g. D:/obs/build) in Visual Studio (or click the 'Open Project' button from within cmake-gui).

  • The project should now be ready to build and run. All required dependencies should be copied on compile and it should be a fully functional build environment. The output is built in the 'rundir/[build type]' directory of your 'build' subdirectory.
• Integrating clang-format into Visual Studio
  • clang-format is required for pull requests, and OBS uses a newer version than the one VS2019 ships with.
  • Download and install LLVM 8.0.0
  • Run VS, and go to Tools -> Options..
  • Text Editor -> C/C++ -> Code Style -> Formatting -> General
    • Enable 'Use custom clang-format.exe' and enter the file name. For example:
    • C:Program FilesLLVMbinclang-format.exe
  • The default command for formatting a document (Edit.FormatDocument) is Ctrl+K, Ctrl+D.

macOS Install Directions

Pre-built macOS versions can be found here: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases

Simply run the installer and follow the on-screen directions to install OBS Studio.

macOS Build Directions

• Clone the repository and submodules:

• If you do not know what submodules are, or you are not using Git from the command line, PLEASE make sure to fetch the submodules too.

macOS Full Build Script

To get a self-built OBS up and running, a default build and packaging script is provided. This script only requires Homebrew (https://brew.sh) to be installed on the build system already:

• To build OBS as-is with full browser-source support, simply run ./CI/full-build-macos.sh from the checkout directory (The script will take care of downloading all necessary dependencies).
• To create an app-bundle after building OBS, run the script with the -b flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -b
• To create a disk image after building OBS, run the script with the -p flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -b -p
• To notarize an app-bundle after building and bundling OBS, run the script with the -n flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -b -n
• To create an app-bundle without building OBS again, run the script with the -s flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -s -b

The last option is helpful if custom cmake flags have been used, but a proper app bundle is desired.

macOS Custom Builds

Custom build configurations require a set of dependencies to be installed on the build system. Some dependencies need to be installed via Homebrew (https://brew.sh):

• FFmpeg
• x264
• cmake
• freetype
• mbedtls
• swig
• Qt5

If you need SRT support, either use FFmpeg provided by obs-deps or install FFmpeg from a custom tap instead of the default homebrew FFmpeg:

Pre-Built Dependencies

These dependencies are also available via obs-deps (https://github.com/obsproject/obs-deps) as pre-compiled binaries, which are assured to be compatible with current OBS code (as OBS is built against specific versions of some packages while Homebrew delivers most recent stable builds).

• When using obs-deps, extract both archives from the macOS release to /tmp/obsdeps to assure compatibility with app bundling later (due to the way dylibs are identified and linked).

• Create a build directory inside the obs-studio directory, change to it, then configure the project via cmake:

• Build OBS by running make.

Configuring and Building

• If not already handled by the Homebrew installation, install a current macOS platform SDK (only macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later is supported): xcode-select --install

• Create a build directory inside the obs-studio directory, change to it, then configure the project via cmake:

• NOTE: cmake might require additional parameters to find Qt5 libraries present on this system, this can either be provided via -DQTDIR='/usr/local/opt/qt' or setting an environment variable, e.g.: export QTDIR=/usr/local/opt/qt
• Build OBS by running make
• Run OBS from the /rundir/RelWithDebInfo/bin directory in your build directory, by running ./obs from a Terminal
• NOTE: If you are running via command prompt, you must be in the 'bin' directory specified above, otherwise it will not be able to find its files relative to the binary.

macOS Xcode Project

To create an Xcode project for OBS, cmake must be run with additional flags. Follow the build instructions above to create a working configuration setup, then add -G Xcode to the cmake command, e.g.:

This will create an obs-studio.xcodeproj project file in the build directory as well as Xcode project files for all build dependencies. To build a full macOS build, the build target ALL_BUILD can be used, but must be configured first:

• Select ALL_BUILD from available build schemes in Xcode, then press CMD+B to build the project at least once
• Then select Edit Scheme.. from the same menu.
• Under the Info tab, click on the dropdown for Executable, then click on other.
• Navigate to the /rundir/debug/bin bin folder that the previous Xcode build process should have created and select the obs binary found there.
• Next, switch to the Options tab and check the box to Use custom working directory and select the same /rundir/debug/bin directory in your Xcode build directory.

NOTE: When running OBS directly from Xcode be aware that browser sources will not be available (as CEF requires to be run as part of an application bundle in macOS) and accessing the webcam will lead to a crash (as macOS requires a permission prompt text set in an application bundle's Info.plist which is, of course, not available).

To debug OBS on macOS with all plugins and modules loaded, follow these steps:

• Build (but do not run) OBS with Xcode.
• Run BUILD_DIR='YOUR_XCODE_BUILD_DIR' BUILD_CONFIG='Debug' ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -d -s -b to bundle OBS build by Xcode, replace YOUR_XCODE_BUILD_DIR with the directory where you ran cmake to create the Xcode project.
• Next, create a new Xcode project, select macOS as platform and Framework as type.
• Give your project any arbitrary name and place it in any folder you like.
• With the new project open, click on your current build scheme in Xcode and select Edit Scheme...
• For the Run step, go to the Info tab and select Other.. in the dropdown for Executable.
• Browse to your OBS Xcode build directory and select the OBS.app application bundle created by the script.

You can now run OBS with Xcode directly attached as debugger. You can debug the visual stack as well as trace crashes and set breakpoints.

NOTE: Breakpoints set in the actual Xcode project do not carry over to this 'helper' project and vice versa.

Any installation directions marked Unofficial are not maintained by the OBS Studio author and may not be up to date or stable.

NOTE: OpenGL 3.3 or later is required to use OBS Studio on Linux. You can check what version of OpenGL is supported by your system by typing glxinfo | grep 'OpenGL' on Terminal.

Linux Install Directions

Ubuntu/Mint Installation

Please note that OBS Studio is not fully working on Chrome OS and features like Screen and Window Capture do not work.

• xserver-xorg version 1.18.4 or newer is recommended to avoid potential performance issues with certain features in OBS, such as the fullscreen projector.

• FFmpeg is required. If you do not have the FFmpeg installed (if you're not sure, then you probably don't have it), you can get it with the following commands:

• If you want virtual camera support you need v4l2loopback-dkms installed. You can install it with the following command :

• Make sure you enabled the multiverse repo in Ubuntu's software center (NOTE: On newer versions of Ubuntu, adding a repository automatically apt updates.) Then you can install OBS with the following commands:

Arch Linux Installation (Unofficial)

• 'Release' version is available on the community repository:
• 'Git' version is available on AUR

Manjaro Installation (Unofficial)

• Graphical: search 'obs-studio' on Pamac Manager or Octopi
• Command-line: install it via pacman with the following command:

Fedora Installation (Unofficial)

• OBS Studio is included in RPM Fusion. If you do not have it configured (if you're not sure, then you probably don't have it), you can do so with the following command:

• Then you can install OBS with the following command (this pulls all dependencies, including NVENC-enabled FFmpeg):

• For NVIDIA Hardware accelerated encoding, make sure you have CUDA installed:

• If you have an older card, use this command instead:

OpenMandriva Installation (Unofficial)

• OBS Studio is included in OpenMandriva Lx3 non-free repository and in restricted repository for upcoming Lx4 release - available now as Cooker.

For OpenMandriva Lx3

• Graphical: search and install 'obs-studio' on 'OpenMandriva Install and Remove Software' (Rpmdrake)

• Command-line: install it as root (su or sudo) via terminal/konsole with the following command:

For OpenMandriva Lx4

• Graphical: search and install 'obs-studio' on 'OpenMandriva Software Management' (dnfdragora)

• Command-line: install it as root (su or sudo) via terminal/konsole with the following command:

Install G Suite On Mac

openSUSE Installation (Unofficial)

• The Packman repository contains the obs-studio package since it requires
  the fuller version of FFmpeg which is in Packman for legal reasons. If you
  do not already have the Packman repository add it as shown below.

  • For openSUSE Tumbleweed:
  • For openSUSE Leap 15.0:
  • For openSUSE Leap 42.3:

• It is recommended to set the priority for Packman lower so it takes
  precedence over base repositories (skip on Tumbleweed as included in initial command).

• The Packman version of FFmpeg should be used for full codec support. To
  ensure any existing FFmpeg packages are switched to Packman versions
  execute the following before installing obs-studio.

• Install the obs-studio package.

Links:

• 1 click install, direct rpm links, and download counts:
  http://packman.links2linux.org/package/obs-studio
• Build information:
  https://pmbs.links2linux.de/package/show/Multimedia/obs-studio

Gentoo Installation (Unofficial)

Command-line: can be installed using portage by the following command:

Reinstall mac os x from usb. See https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/media-video/obs-studio for available versions and more information.

NixOS Installation (Unofficial)

Command-line: can be installed by the following command:

See https://nixos.org/wiki/OBS for further instructions

UOS/Deepin Installation (Unofficial)

UOS/Deepin 20 or newer is required.

• First, make sure you have everything up-to-date.

• El capitan update to high sierra. FFmpeg is required. If you do not have the FFmpeg installed (if you're not sure, then you probably don't have it), you can get it with the following command (or compile it yourself):

• Finally, install OBS Studio.

• or with Spark Store:

Debian/LMDE Installation (Unofficial)

Debian 9.0 or newer is required.
Please note that OBS Studio is not fully working on Chrome OS and features like Screen and Window Capture do not work.

• First, make sure you have everything up-to-date.

• FFmpeg is required. If you do not have the FFmpeg installed (if you're not sure, then you probably don't have it), you can get it with the following command (or compile it yourself):

• Finally, install OBS Studio.

Void Installation (Unofficial)

• First make sure your repositories are up-to-date. OBS is available on the multilib repos if you need the 32-bit build.

• Then install OBS Studio. Any missing dependencies will be installed automatically.

  • If it refuses to install, try running sudo xbps-install -Su to update everything first.

snappy Installation (Unofficial)

Install G++ With Macports

• If you haven't already, install snapd (ignore the Support Overview which is outdated).

• Install OBS Studio.

Linux Build Directions

Note: as of May 1, 2019, Facebook live now mandates the use of RTMPS. That functionality requires your distro's mbed TLS package, which obs-studio/cmake/Modules/FindMbedTLS.cmake script searches for at compile time.

Note: Do not use the GitHub source .tar as it does not include all the required source files. Always use the appropriate Git tag with the associated submodules.

Red Hat-based Build Directions

• Get RPM Fusion at http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration/ (Nux Desktop is an alternative that may include better packages for RHEL/CentOS 7)

• Get the required packages:

  • If libspeexdsp-devel is not available, it can be built from source (https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/speexdsp)

• Building and installing OBS:

  • If building with browser source:

  • If building without browser source:

• By default OBS installs libraries in /usr/local/lib. To make sure that the loader can find them there, create a file /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf with the single line

  and then run

  Fedora Build Directions

• Building and installing OBS:

  • If building with browser source:

  • If building without browser source:

Debian-based Build Directions

• Get the required packages:

• Building and installing OBS:

  • If building with browser source:

  • If building without browser source:

openSUSE Build Directions

• See openSUSE installation instructions (above) for details on adding Packman repository.

• Install build dependencies:

• Building and installing OBS:

  • If building with browser source:

  • If building without browser source:

Linux portable mode (all distros)

• Please note that you need to install the build dependencies for your distribution before following this steps. See above.

• You can build in portable mode on Linux, which installs all the files to an isolated directory.

  • If building with browser source:

  • If building without browser source:

• After that, you should have a portable install in ~/obs-studio-portable. Change to bin/64bit or bin/32bit and then simply run: ./obs

FreeBSD Installation (Unofficial)

• Install OBS Studio:

FreeBSD Build Directions

• The easiest way to build OBS Studio from source is to use the FreeBSD Ports and modify the multimedia/obs-studio port to suite your needs.

• First you have to set up the ports infrastructure on your system. See the related chapter in the FreeBSD Handbook.

• Once you've got your ports tree at /usr/ports you may edit the multimedia/obs-studio port to your liking. Then, you may build and install the port with: