Download Emacs for Windows, Mac, Linux

Windows

Download at http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/windows/

This is the official GNU Emacs, build for Windows by Free Software Foundation.

You'll see file names like these:

• emacs-27.1-i686.zip → for 32 bits machine
• emacs-27.1-x86_64.zip → for 64 bits machine

To find if your Microsoft Windows is 32 or 64, press ❖ Window key, type “about” in the search box. It'll bring up “About” window. Look for the line “system type”.

After download, right click on the zip file, select “extract all” to unzip it.

Then open the extracted folder, open the folder named “bin”, click the “runemacs” to start emacs.

To uninstall, just delete the folder.

[see Emacs in Microsoft Windows FAQ]

Mac

Emacs is installed on macOS by default, but a very old version, version 22.1, dated 2007.

In terminal, type:

which emacs

check if emacs is installed and in your path.

emacs --version

print version.

emacs

launch emacs. (to quit, press Ctrl+x Ctrl+c)

Download Latest Emacs for MacOS

Download at http://emacsformacosx.com/

This is plain GNU Emacs, built by David Caldwell.

Homebrew, Macports

Or, get emacs from one of the package managers.

• Homebrew http://brew.sh/
• MacPorts https://www.macports.org/

you can double click the icon to launch emacs.

or, launch emacs in terminal, like this:

Linux

Build Emacs from Source Code

• How to Build Emacs on Linux
• Emacs: How to Build Emacs from git Repository

Download Emacs Binary from apt-get

In terminal, type:

which emacs

check if emacs is installed and in your path.

emacs --version

print version.

emacs

launch emacs. (to quit, press Ctrl+x Ctrl+c)

On Ubuntu, to check available emacs package version for install,

# search for emacs binary
apt-cache search emacs | grep emacs

Typically you install by

sudo apt-get install emacs27

, where the emacs27 may be other version.