How to Download Kicad onto Mac OS

I have students using MacOS who are able to download the program, but the library software is not accessible, The kids using Windows have no problems and can access the symbols readily when making the schematic. They (MacOS kids) are told to drag and drop two folders when loading Kicad but the symbol library does not automatically populate so they cant make a schematic. This is a consistent problem for all of my Mac OS kids.

Apple has made it increasingly hard to install software…

The drag and drop of the second folder has stopped working in recent versions of MacOS.

Here is the workaround that works for me:

  1. Double click on the Application Support shortcut in the KiCad disk image:

  1. Drag the second folder (lowercase “kicad”) into the new Application Support finder window that opened (not into the shortcut that the arrow points to)

You will get an authentication popup:

Click Authenticate and put in the password (or use Touch ID if configured)

After this the libraries should work.

From other threads I’ve read here the fruit brand of PC’s apparently decided it is smarter then it’s users and to protect users from itself decided to hide directories and switch names of directories in order to prevent users from using their system normally. Apparently it has something to do with an attempt to make installing viruses more difficult.

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