How to Install PICSimLab on macOS
PICSimLab v0.9.3 (released 20 September 2026) is the first release with native macOS builds — before v0.9.3 there was no official macOS package at all. This guide covers downloading the right .dmg for your Mac, installing it, and getting past the standard macOS first-open confirmation. All files and checksums are on our PICSimLab for macOS page and the main Download page.
Step 1: Pick the build for your Mac
There are two .dmg files, and they are not interchangeable:
- Apple Silicon (M-series chips):
PICSimLab_0.9.3_260920_macOS_26.6.2_arm64.dmg(27,970,234 bytes, SHA-25646cae7379b3828d771feefcaeb040f87d02ffbd5bd160dcda6152c8fa14b8b00) - Intel Macs:
PICSimLab_0.9.3_260920_macOS_26.6.1_x86_64.dmg(28,724,896 bytes, SHA-256cb6af4651fe811dab3088667f34f3d0495960ec6b0bb4627f44f73a21386d07b)
To check your Mac, open the Apple menu and choose “About This Mac”: an Apple M-series chip means arm64; an Intel processor means x86_64. The version numbers inside the official file names are simply part of the names as published by the project.
Step 2: Download and verify
Download the .dmg from the macOS page — the buttons link to the official GitHub release files. If you want to verify the download, open Terminal in the download folder and compare:
shasum -a 256 PICSimLab_0.9.3_260920_macOS_26.6.2_arm64.dmg
The output must match the SHA-256 for your build in Step 1. Verifying is a good habit in general, and it is the reliable way to know a file is the genuine release.
Step 3: Install
Open the .dmg and drag PICSimLab into your Applications folder, as you would with other Mac apps. Eject the disk image afterwards.
Step 4: First open (Gatekeeper)
The first time you open an app downloaded from the internet, macOS may show a confirmation dialog, or may decline to open the app by double-click because it was downloaded from the web. This is Gatekeeper, the standard macOS check for downloaded apps — it is not specific to PICSimLab. The standard ways through it are:
- Right-click (or Control-click) PICSimLab in Applications and choose Open, then confirm in the dialog.
- Or, after a blocked attempt, open System Settings → Privacy & Security and use the Open Anyway option for PICSimLab.
Only do this for a file whose checksum you verified in Step 2. After the first successful open, PICSimLab launches normally from Applications.
Step 5: Run your first simulation
Choose a development board (21 are supported, including PIC boards, Arduino Uno and Mega, Blue Pill and the ESP32 boards), load a compiled .hex file, and press run. PICSimLab does not edit or compile source code — write and build your firmware in MPLAB X, the Arduino IDE, or VS Code with PlatformIO, just as for real hardware, then simulate it here. Coming from another platform? The workflow is the same as in our Windows and Ubuntu & Debian guides.
A note on system requirements
The PICSimLab project does not publish official minimum system requirements for macOS (or any platform), so this site does not list any. What the release itself tells you is exactly what is above: separate Intel and Apple Silicon builds, new in v0.9.3.