Step 2: Download the Bazel installer

Next, download the Bazel binary installer named bazel-<version>-installer-darwin-x86_64.sh from the Bazel releases page on GitHub.

Note: on macOS Catalina, due to Apple’s new app notarization requirements, you need to download the installer from the terminal using curl:

# Example installing version `3.2.0`. Replace the version below as appropriate.
export BAZEL_VERSION=3.2.0
curl -fLO "https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/download/${BAZEL_VERSION}/bazel-${BAZEL_VERSION}-installer-darwin-x86_64.sh"

This is a temporary workaround until the macOS release flow supports notarization (#9304).

Step 3: Run the installer

Run the Bazel installer as follows:

chmod +x "bazel-${BAZEL_VERSION}-installer-darwin-x86_64.sh"
./bazel-${BAZEL_VERSION}-installer-darwin-x86_64.sh --user

The --user flag installs Bazel to the $HOME/bin directory on your system and sets the .bazelrc path to $HOME/.bazelrc. Use the --help command to see additional installation options.

If you are on macOS Catalina and get an error that “bazel-real” cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified, you need to re-download the installer from the terminal using curl as a workaround; see Step 2 above.

Step 4: Set up your environment

If you ran the Bazel installer with the --user flag as above, the Bazel executable is installed in your $HOME/bin directory. It’s a good idea to add this directory to your default paths, as follows:

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin"

You can also add this command to your ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, or ~/.profile file.

All set! You can confirm Bazel is installed successfully by running the following command:

bazel --version

To update to a newer release of Bazel, download and install the desired version.