[gretl main page]

Step 0: Are you sure?

If you're running macOS 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") or higher you should be looking at our current macOS page. As of May 2020 we are no longer able to test or update our builds of gretl for earlier versions of OS X; on this page we offer gretl 2020b "as is". You can, however, download earlier versions (2020a or older) from our repository. Or if you use MacPorts (or want to try it), up-to-date builds of gretl are available for all Mac architectures at macports.org. The MacPorts builds are not made by the gretl team but they're done very professionally.

Step 1: PPC or Intel?

To select your download(s) below, you need to know if your Mac has a PPC ("PowerPC") or Intel processor. If in doubt, check under "About this Mac", by clicking on the Apple icon at the top left of your screen.

Step 2: Ensure you have X11

To run gretl you need to have the X11 window system installed on your Mac. This should be automatic, but if you're using a truly ancient version you may have to go back to the installation DVD to install X11.

How to tell if X11 is installed? Open the Finder and go to Applications. Under Applications, find the Utilities folder, open it and scan to the end: if X11 is installed it should appear there as an icon.

Step 3: Ensure you have GTK

Some additional libraries are needed to support gretl, namely GTK and friends. you can install GTK using gtk2-framework.dmg. This need only be done once. If you're updating an existing gretl installation, skip this step.

Step 4: Install gretl

For gretl itself: grab and install the final release (April 11, 2020) for your platform.

After downloading, double-click on the gretl dmg file to mount the disk image. Open the disk image in the Finder and drag Gretl onto Applications. But note: if you're updating an existing installation of gretl you should first open Applications in the Finder and delete the old Gretl item. Once that's all done you can eject the disk image and delete the dmg file.

Trouble?

If you want to debug a non-functioning gretl on OS X, please try this: open an X11 terminal window; change directory (cd) to Gretl.app (where you installed the package); change directory to Contents/Resources/bin and run the command

./gretl

This should give you some feedback on what is going wrong.

Optional extras

You may wish to install X-12-ARIMA and/or TRAMO/SEATS. These are specialized programs for analysis of seasonal time series data, in versions compatible with gretl.