Way back in 2016, I finally got around to diving in to try compiling FET on the Mac (partly just for fun, but also in order to hopefully solve a few minor bugs that had appeared on the most recently available Mac executable at the time—happily, those bugs are now gone!).
I am by no means a programmer, so I thought it might be helpful to list the steps required to compile FET on a Mac (from essentially a clean install), for anyone else with limited programming experience who's interested in trying to compile FET for the Mac.
The instructions below are written for the current version of FET (7.8.0) and the current version of Qt (6.10.2), and assume that both Qt and the downloaded FET folder are located in their default locations, /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Qt for Qt and /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads for FET. (Replace YOURUSERNAME with your actual username.) Of course, you will also need to update the version numbers in the commands below as FET and Qt are updated. These instructions are current as of 2026, and I'll try to update these instructions when necessary.
1. Install Xcode from the Mac App Store. (Once installed, you'll need to open the Xcode app to finish the installation.)
2. Install Qt from https://www.qt.io. The default install location is /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Qt, and you can create a (free) Qt account, or just skip past that screen. If you're just using Qt for FET, you should select to "download for open source".
3. Install CMake from from https://cmake.org/download/.
4. Download the latest version of the FET source files from https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html. The default download location is /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads, and you'll need to double-click the downloaded xz file to create the folder of files needed to compile.
5. Open CMake, and in the first field ("Where is the source code:") select
For "Where to build the binaries:" (this is where the compiled FET version will be located) I set this to a new folder on my desktop named fet, so here I'd enter
Now select the Configure button. You'll be prompted for permission to create the desktop FET folder. You'll also be asked to select the generator (select Unix Makefiles, which is the default value) and then you'll see a number of fields highlighted in red. The next step involve setting those fields correctly.
6. You now need to set a number of CMake settings to the correct value. There's a checkbox in the list of CMake settings to allow you to select USE_SYSTEM_LOCALE. This should automatically install the relevant language files to use FET in your region's default language. (I don't do this, as I install support for all available languages, and instructions for including all language files are included below.)
Locate Qt6 for CMake, by setting Qt6_DIR to
If you're only running FET on the computer you're using to compile, you can skip ahead to step 7. If you want to compile a version of FET that can be run on other computers, continue with the other CMake settings below.
To make a universal binary (that runs on ARM and Intel processors), set CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES to
To set the minimum macOS version that is supported (older OS versions may complain the compiled app is too new if this isn't set), set CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET to
7. To update the fields in CMake, press the Configure button twice, and all of the red highlighting should disappear. Then select the Generate button. Now you are finished with CMake.
8. Open the Terminal app and type the commands listed below, replacing YOURUSERNAME with the username of your Mac account (as above, it's the string between "~" and "$" in the Terminal app). You will need to press enter after you type each of the commands below.
Now you'll need to wait—around 2 minutes on a 2023 MacBook Mini M2 Pro. Faster results may be possible by using, for example, make -j 8 instead—with the number at the end of the command set to match the number of processors you've got in your computer. (Not sure how many processors you've got? Type sysctl -n hw.ncpu in the terminal, the number that appears will be the number of processors you've got.)
You now have a working version of FET located in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/fet/src/interface/, but one which will only run on a Mac with Qt installed. To create an app that will run on other Macs, complete step 9.
9. Open the Terminal app and type the following:
10. If you want to use FET in a language other than the default, you'll need to move the translation files into the appropriate location. The files you need to move can be found in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads/fet-7.8.0/translations—you'll want to move all of the files ending with .qm to a new location. Open a new Finder window and right-click on the FET.app you've just created in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/fet/src/interface/, and select Show Package Contents. Then open the Contents folder, and finally open the MacOS folder within Contents. This is where you should move the .qm files. Once these have been moved, you switch FET languages within the FET app as usual.
Now drag the fet application to your Applications folder, and that's it!
I am by no means a programmer, so I thought it might be helpful to list the steps required to compile FET on a Mac (from essentially a clean install), for anyone else with limited programming experience who's interested in trying to compile FET for the Mac.
The instructions below are written for the current version of FET (7.8.0) and the current version of Qt (6.10.2), and assume that both Qt and the downloaded FET folder are located in their default locations, /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Qt for Qt and /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads for FET. (Replace YOURUSERNAME with your actual username.) Of course, you will also need to update the version numbers in the commands below as FET and Qt are updated. These instructions are current as of 2026, and I'll try to update these instructions when necessary.
1. Install Xcode from the Mac App Store. (Once installed, you'll need to open the Xcode app to finish the installation.)
2. Install Qt from https://www.qt.io. The default install location is /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Qt, and you can create a (free) Qt account, or just skip past that screen. If you're just using Qt for FET, you should select to "download for open source".
3. Install CMake from from https://cmake.org/download/.
4. Download the latest version of the FET source files from https://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html. The default download location is /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads, and you'll need to double-click the downloaded xz file to create the folder of files needed to compile.
5. Open CMake, and in the first field ("Where is the source code:") select
Code Select
/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads/fet-7.8.0
For "Where to build the binaries:" (this is where the compiled FET version will be located) I set this to a new folder on my desktop named fet, so here I'd enter
Code Select
/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/fet
Now select the Configure button. You'll be prompted for permission to create the desktop FET folder. You'll also be asked to select the generator (select Unix Makefiles, which is the default value) and then you'll see a number of fields highlighted in red. The next step involve setting those fields correctly.
6. You now need to set a number of CMake settings to the correct value. There's a checkbox in the list of CMake settings to allow you to select USE_SYSTEM_LOCALE. This should automatically install the relevant language files to use FET in your region's default language. (I don't do this, as I install support for all available languages, and instructions for including all language files are included below.)
Locate Qt6 for CMake, by setting Qt6_DIR to
Code Select
/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Qt/6.10.2/macos/lib/cmake/Qt6
If you're only running FET on the computer you're using to compile, you can skip ahead to step 7. If you want to compile a version of FET that can be run on other computers, continue with the other CMake settings below.
To make a universal binary (that runs on ARM and Intel processors), set CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES to
Code Select
x86_64;arm64
To set the minimum macOS version that is supported (older OS versions may complain the compiled app is too new if this isn't set), set CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET to
Code Select
13.0
7. To update the fields in CMake, press the Configure button twice, and all of the red highlighting should disappear. Then select the Generate button. Now you are finished with CMake.
8. Open the Terminal app and type the commands listed below, replacing YOURUSERNAME with the username of your Mac account (as above, it's the string between "~" and "$" in the Terminal app). You will need to press enter after you type each of the commands below.
Code Select
cd /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/fet
Code Select
make -j 4
Now you'll need to wait—around 2 minutes on a 2023 MacBook Mini M2 Pro. Faster results may be possible by using, for example, make -j 8 instead—with the number at the end of the command set to match the number of processors you've got in your computer. (Not sure how many processors you've got? Type sysctl -n hw.ncpu in the terminal, the number that appears will be the number of processors you've got.)
You now have a working version of FET located in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/fet/src/interface/, but one which will only run on a Mac with Qt installed. To create an app that will run on other Macs, complete step 9.
9. Open the Terminal app and type the following:
Code Select
cd /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Qt/6.10.2/macos/bin/
Code Select
./macdeployqt /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/fet/src/interface/fet.app10. If you want to use FET in a language other than the default, you'll need to move the translation files into the appropriate location. The files you need to move can be found in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Downloads/fet-7.8.0/translations—you'll want to move all of the files ending with .qm to a new location. Open a new Finder window and right-click on the FET.app you've just created in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/fet/src/interface/, and select Show Package Contents. Then open the Contents folder, and finally open the MacOS folder within Contents. This is where you should move the .qm files. Once these have been moved, you switch FET languages within the FET app as usual.
Now drag the fet application to your Applications folder, and that's it!
). This one is the more difficult of the two.