README_mac.txt for version 8.0 of Vim: Vi IMproved. This file explains the installation of Vim on Macintosh systems. See "README.txt" for general information about Vim. To build from sources, like on Unix 1. Get the build tools: "clang" and "make". These can be installed with the "CommandLineTools" package. If you don't have one, do xcode-select --install Just like for any software development with OS X. 2. Get the source code. Best is to use git (which you need to install first), see http://www.vim.org/git.php Or you can download and unpack the Unix tar archive, see http://www.vim.org/download.php 3. Go to the top directory of the source tree, do make sudo make install A newly built vim will be installed under "/usr/local". If you can't manage to make this work, there is a fallback using Homebrew: 1. Install Homebrew from http://brew.sh/ 2. Install latest Vim with: brew install vim