A Methodical Installation Guide for Claude Code on Mac (Q1 2026)

This is a guide for installing Claude Code on your Mac.

This guide is especially helpful if you are non-technical because Claude Code can be a little bit intimidating when you're starting.

Steps for downloading Claude Code to your Mac computer:

1. 1. Install Claude Desktop (claude.ai/download)
2. Install VS Code (code.visualstudio.com/download)
3. Open VS Code, open VS Code terminal (View → Terminal)
4. Run: curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | sh
5. Quit VS Code completely (Cmd+Q), reopen
6. Type claude in terminal, log in when browser opens
7. Done!

Download our guide and give it to your AI!

You can download our troubleshooting markdown file and give it to Claude (or other chat interfaces) to walk you through this process.

Download the file here.

We hope you enjoy the video.