2.11 Installing Rattle on macOS

20250924

As of 28 September 2025 the Rattle version is 6.5.17.

To review changes in the latest release of Rattle visit the CHANGELOG.

Summary

  1. Visit https://cloud.r-project.org/
  2. Tap Download R for macOS
  3. Download R-n.n.n-arm64.pkg (Apple) or R-n.n.n-x86_64.pkg (Intel)
  4. Open the downloaded file to install R choosing all the defaults
  5. R will be installed to /usr/local/bin/R
  6. Start R in a Terminal
  7. Run install.packages() as in Section 2.2
  8. Download https://access.togaware.com/rattle-dev-macos-unsigned.dmg
  9. Open the dmg to run Rattle.

Before Installing Rattle

Before you install Rattle please be sure that R is installed, as detailed in Section 2.1 and be sure to install the required R packages, as detailed in Section 2.2. Please also install XQuartz.

You are then ready to install Rattle.

Installing Rattle Itself

There are two options for installing Rattle on macOS:

  • dmg package file;
  • zip archive.

A homebrew option is in progress as in Section 2.12;

You can also download the dmg pacakge or zip archive from the command line if you have curl installed:

curl https://access.togaware.com/rattle-dev-macos.zip -o rattle-dev-macos-unsigned.dmg
curl https://access.togaware.com/rattle-dev-macos.zip -o rattle-dev-macos.zip

You can the open either to run Rattle. For the dmg version, after opening the downloaded file drag rattle into the Applications folder

Or else open a terminal after downloading the zip archive and unzip it locally: 2

unzip rattle-dev-macos.zip -d rattle

Then run the app:

open rattle/rattle.app

Troubleshooting

“rattle.app” Not Opened

The package is currently unsigned (in progress) so the OS reports that the app could not be verified and will not be run. On older macOS, tap the Security link (Settings) that pops up to allow rattle to be run. For newer versions of macOS you will see a popup with a warning but no solutions offered there. Tap Done, then open System Settings, choose Security & Privacy, then scroll down to the bottom to tap on Open Anyway for rattle. Or else run this command:

xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine rattle/rattle.app

You will need to do this each time you install Rattle.

failed to load Cairo DLL

If you see this message then be sure to install XQuartz to be able to utilise the Cairo graphics library for vector based (i.e., infinite resolution) graphics as used by Rattle.

Missing Packages


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