Install dependencies

Summary

• macOS
• Linux
  • DEB
  • RPM
• Windows
  1. Dependencies archive
  2. MSVC build tools

You must have completed all required steps in Set up Developer Environment, Install Qt and Qt Creator and Get MuseScore's source code.

At this point, you could proceed straight to Compile on the command line. The build would fail due to missing dependencies, but the error messages should tell you what you need to install. Simply paste the error into your preferred search engine and see what comes up. It'll work eventually, but it requires a lot of effort!

To save time, we've listed the dependencies below. After installing them, if you still get errors compiling, our CI build scripts may provide clues about more dependencies, or steps that we forgot to mention elsewhere in this guide. (If so, feel free to add them yourself!)

macOS

See buildscripts/ci/macos/download_dependencies.sh for more clues.

# Homebrew
brew install libsndfile pkg-config

Note

Xcode's command line tools are also required. These should have been installed automatically when you installed Homebrew.

Xcode itself is not required. In fact, we recommend that you compile in Qt Creator instead.

Linux

See buildscripts/ci/linux/setup.sh for more clues.

DEB

Commands for Debian, Ubuntu, and other Linux distros that use the DEB packaging format.

# MuseScore Studio
deb_packages=(
    # Alphabetical order please!
    g++
    libasound2-dev
    libfreetype6
    libfreetype6-dev
    libsndfile1-dev
    libssl-dev
    libportmidi-dev
    libpulse-dev
    portaudio19-dev
)

# build.cmake
deb_packages+=(
    libgl1-mesa-dev
    libxkbcommon-dev
)

# Qt Creator
deb_packages+=(
    libxcb-cursor0
)

sudo apt install "${deb_packages[@]}"

RPM

Commands for Fedora and other Linux distros that use the RPM packaging format.

rpm_packages=(
    # Alphabetical order please!
    alsa-lib-devel
    freetype
    freetype-devel
    g++
    libsndfile-devel
    libxkbcommon-devel
    mesa-libGL-devel
    openssl-devel
    portaudio-devel
    portmidi-devel
    pulseaudio-libs-devel
)

# Use the command for your package manager:
sudo dnf install "${rpm_packages[@]}"
sudo yum install "${rpm_packages[@]}"

Windows

See buildscripts/ci/windows/setup.bat for more clues.

Dependencies archive

We provide 7-zip archives containing the MSVC and MinGW versions of various libraries.

Install 7-zip from its website or via one of these commands:

choco install 7zip # requires sudo or Administrator prompt
scoop install 7zip

Now download the appropriate MuseScore dependencies for your machine:

• 32-bit dependencies
• 64-bit dependencies

Once downloaded, (Windows 11 only: hold Shift and) right-click on the file in File Explorer. Choose 7-zip > Extract.

Put the extracted dependencies folder directly inside MuseScore's source code folder on your machine.

Important

Make sure there's not another dependencies folder inside the first one; it should only be one layer deep.

MuseScore\dependencies               # Good!
MuseScore\dependencies\dependencies  # Bad!

MSVC build tools

Follow these steps if you selected MSVC as the prebuilt component when you installed Qt.

Note

MSVC's build tools are installed via a program called Visual Studio Installer, which (surprise, surprise!) is also used to install Microsoft's IDE, Visual Studio. However, you don't need Visual Studio to compile MuseScore. In fact, we recommend that you compile in Qt Creator instead.

Download Visual Studio Installer

To get the build tools without Visual Studio:

1. Visit https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/
2. Scroll to All downloads near the bottom of the page.
3. Expand Tools for Visual Studio.
4. Download Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022.

If you do want Visual Studio, you can use the link at the top of the downloads page to get the free Community edition, but bear in mind that Visual Studio is a very large program (15GB+) so don't download it unless you're actually going to use it. It's not needed to compile MuseScore.

Run Visual Studio Installer

When you run the installer (either for the first time, or later to modify components) you'll eventually reach the Workloads tab.

Make sure the Desktop development with C++ option is selected. None of the other workloads are required for MuseScore.

Switch to the Individual components tab and make sure the following components are selected:

• Compilers, build tools, and runtimes
  • MSVC v[version] - VS [year] - C++ x64/86 build tools (Important! See below to get the right year)
• SDKs, libraries, and frameworks
  • Windows 10 or 11 SDK (pick the latest version available)

Important

You should pick the VS year that matches the MSVC year of the prebuilt component you installed with Qt. You can pick a newer VS year, but you might see warnings about it in Qt Creator. You cannot pick an older VS year. See MSVC ABI-compatibility.

Click Next (or Modify) to complete the installation.

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