Visual Studio 2019 for Windows & Mac - Download Visual Studio 2019 for Windows, Mac full In this version, it's easy to choose and install just the features you need. And because of its reduced minimum footprint, it installs quickly and with less system impact. Download Visual Studio Mac. Developer tools and services for any platform with any language. IDE, DevOps, code editor & more. Now we have two Visual Studio versions (Visual Studio for Mac, Visual Studio Code) that can directly install on the Mac (macOS), refer to your description, it looks like you installed the Visual Studio for Mac, it is a developer environment optimized for building mobile and cloud apps with Xamarin and.NET.
Microsoft today announced that Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac has hit general availability — you can download it now from visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads. Visual Studio 2019 includes AI-assisted code completion with Visual Studio IntelliCode. Separately, real-time collaboration tool Visual Studio Live Share has also hit general availability, and is now included with Visual Studio 2019.
Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2017 in March 2017 and Visual Studio 2017 for Mac in May 2017, which turned out to be the “most popular Visual Studio release ever.” The company announced Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac in June, and started releasing Visual Studio 2019 previews in December.
Visual Studio 2019 improves on Visual Studio 2017 across the board. It includes a new start window experience to get developers into their code faster (making it simpler to clone a Git repo or to open an existing project or folder), improved template selection screen, increased coding space, a new search experience, more refactoring capabilities, a document health indicator, and smarter debugging. Plus, all of the above works with both your existing project and new projects — from cross-platform C++ applications, to .NET mobile apps for Android and iOS written using Xamarin, to cloud-native applications using Azure services.
New features
The new start window on launch is designed to work better with today’s Git repositories, including local repos, Git repos on GitHub, and Azure Repos. Git aside, you can still open a project or a solution or create a new one of either.
Visual Studio’s UI and UX have also received subtle changes, such as a new product icon, a cleaner blue theme, and a more compact title and menu bar. There’s also a new search experience that replaces the Quick Launch box. It lets you find settings and commands and install options, and it even supports fuzzy string searching.
Visual Studio 2019 improves the code maintainability and consistency experiences with new refactoring capabilities — such as changing for-loops to LINQ queries and converting tuples to named-structs. There’s also a new document health indicator and code clean-up functionality.
As for debugging, stepping performance is improved and search capabilities have been added to the Autos, Locals, and Watch windows. You can also expect improvements to the Snapshot Debugger to target Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS), and better performance when debugging large C++ projects, thanks to an out-of-process 64-bit debugger.
IntelliCode and Live Share
At its Build 2018 developers conference in May, Microsoft previewed IntelliCode and Live Share. The former uses AI to offer intelligent suggestions that improve code quality and productivity, and the latter lets developers collaborate in real time with team members who can edit and debug directly from Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.
Visual Studio IntelliCode now has custom models and expanded language support. Custom models further improve the AI-enhanced IntelliSense, giving developers personalized recommendations based on the patterns and libraries used in their code, on top of the analysis made on thousands of open source repos. Visual Studio developers now get IntelliCode for XAML and C++ code, in addition to C#. Visual Studio Code developers can use IntelliCode when developing JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and Java.
Visual Studio Live Share, which is now installed by default in Visual Studio 2019, helps developers collaborate in real time, including desktop app sharing, source control diffs, and code commenting. Being able to share, edit, and debug code is great, but being able to do so without needing to clone repos or set up environments is even better. Based on feedback, Microsoft also added features like read-only mode, support for additional languages like C++ and Python, and enabled guests to start debugging sessions. Live Share can be used in a variety of use cases, including pair programming, code reviews, giving lectures, presenting to students and colleagues, or even mob programming during hackathons.
Learning Visual Studio 2019
For a full run-down of all the additions and improvements, check out what’s new, the docs, and release notes (Windows, Mac). Furthermore, Pluralsight has a free Visual Studio 2019 course available until April 22, while LinkedIn Learning has a free course available until May 2.
Microsoft is also hosting a virtual Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event and over 70 local launch events around the world today where it will demo the new version and detail its features. The company has also planned over 200 more events between now and the end of June. If all else fails, there’s always the Visual Studio Developer Community.
Installation
- Download Visual Studio Code for macOS.
- Open the browser's download list and locate the downloaded archive.
- Select the 'magnifying glass' icon to open the archive in Finder.
- Drag
Visual Studio Code.appto theApplicationsfolder, making it available in the macOS Launchpad. - Add VS Code to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon to bring up the context menu and choosing Options, Keep in Dock.
Launching from the command line
You can also run VS Code from the terminal by typing 'code' after adding it to the path:
- Launch VS Code.
- Open the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)) and type 'shell command' to find the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.
- Restart the terminal for the new
$PATHvalue to take effect. You'll be able to type 'code .' in any folder to start editing files in that folder.
Note: If you still have the old code alias in your .bash_profile (or equivalent) from an early VS Code version, remove it and replace it by executing the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.
Alternative manual instructions
Instead of running the command above, you can manually add VS Code to your path, to do so run the following commands:
Start a new terminal to pick up your .bash_profile changes.
Note: The leading slash is required to prevent $PATH from expanding during the concatenation. Remove the leading slash if you want to run the export command directly in a terminal.
Note: Since zsh became the default shell in macOS Catalina, run the following commands to add VS Code to your path:
Touch Bar support
Out of the box VS Code adds actions to navigate in editor history as well as the full Debug tool bar to control the debugger on your Touch Bar:
Mojave privacy protections
After upgrading to macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave and is not specific to VS Code. The same dialogs may be displayed when running other applications as well. The dialog is shown once for each type of personal data and it is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders. You can read a more detailed explanation in this blog post.
Updates
VS Code ships monthly releases and supports auto-update when a new release is available. If you're prompted by VS Code, accept the newest update and it will get installed (you won't need to do anything else to get the latest bits).
Note: You can disable auto-update if you prefer to update VS Code on your own schedule.
Preferences menu
You can configure VS Code through settings, color themes, and custom keybindings and you will often see mention of the File > Preferences menu group. On a macOS, the Preferences menu group is under Code, not File.
Next steps
Once you have installed VS Code, these topics will help you learn more about VS Code:
- Additional Components - Learn how to install Git, Node.js, TypeScript, and tools like Yeoman.
- User Interface - A quick orientation around VS Code.
- User/Workspace Settings - Learn how to configure VS Code to your preferences settings.
Common questions
Visual Studio 2019 On Mac
Why do I see 'Visual Studio Code would like access to your calendar.'
If you are running macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave discussed above. It is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders.
Microsoft Visual Studio Trial
VS Code fails to update
If VS Code doesn't update once it restarts, it might be set under quarantine by macOS. Follow the steps in this issue for resolution.