How to Install Visual Studio Code on Mac

This tutorial will show how to install visual studio code on mac. 

What is Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is free and available on your favorite platform – Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows. Download Visual Studio Code to experience a redefined code editor optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications.

How to Install Visual Studio Code on Mac

To install visual studio code on mac:

1. Download Visual Studio Code for Mac.
2. Double-click on the downloaded archive to expand its contents.
3. Drag Visual Studio Code.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the Launchpad.
4. Add VSCode to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon and choosing  Options  Keep in Doc.

After installing the VS Code, we can also configure the code to open from a command line, and it is pretty darn easy for us to do that.

1. Launch Visual Studio Code.
2. Open the Command Palette (⇧⌘P) and type ‘shell command‘ to find the Shell Command: Install the ‘code’ command in the PATH command.

Now, if you have created any project that goes into that folder and hit the following command to open that project into the Visual Studio Code.

code .

See, it is straightforward to install visual studio code on mac.

Languages Support.

Some of the best language supports are as follows.

JavaScript

PHP

HTML

CSS, Sass, Less

TypeScript

Python

Go

C++

VS Code Extension Marketplace.

The features that Visual Studio Code includes out-of-the-box are just the start. In addition, VS Code extensions let you add languages, debuggers, and tools to your installation to support your development workflow.

Visual Studio Code provides the best tooling support for Javascript frameworks like React.js, Angular, and Vue.js.

Code Intellisense.

Visual Studio Code IntelliSense is intelligent code completion, parameter info, and member lists. Visual Studio Code provides IntelliSense using TypeScript type declaration (typings) files to provide metadata about the JavaScript-based frameworks you are consuming in your application. 

PHP extensions.

There are many PHP extensions out there, and some of the famous ones are as follows.

1. PHP Intellisense
2. PHP Debug

Debugging

One of the main features of the Visual Studio Code is its great debugging support. VS Code’s built-in debugger helps accelerate your edit, compile, and debug loop.

Using Version Control in VS Code

Visual Studio Code has integrated source control and includes Git support out of the box.

Many other source control providers are available through extensions on the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

Integrated Terminal

In Visual Studio Code, you can open an integrated terminal, initially starting at the root of your workspace. It can be very convenient as you don’t have to switch windows or alter the state of an existing terminal to perform a quick command-line task.

If you are working in the Javascript environment, then often you need to install the new packages, and at this time, this integrated terminal works fantastic.

VS Code fails to update

If Visual Studio Code doesn’t update once it restarts, macOS might set it under quarantine. Follow the steps in this issue for resolution.

How do I uninstall Visual Studio Code?

If you want to delete all user data after uninstalling VS Code, you can remove the user data folders Code and .vscode.

It will return you to the state before you install VS Code.

This can also reset all the settings if you don’t want to uninstall VS Code.

The folder locations will vary depending on your platform:

1. Windows – Delete %APPDATA%\Code and %USERPROFILE%\.vscode.
2. macOS – Delete $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code and ~/.vscode.
3. Linux – Delete $HOME/.config/Code and ~/.vscode.

Conclusion

VS Code is the free code editor, which runs on MacOS, Linux, and WindowsOS.

Follow the platform-specific guides below:

• macOS
• Linux
• Windows

VS Code is lightweight and should run on the most available hardware and platform versions.

You can review the System Requirements to check if the computer configuration is supported.

See also

How to configure ESLint on Visual Studio Code

How to use PHP in Visual Studio Code

Top 5 Code Editors for Windows and Mac