26 thoughts on “Install mcrypt PHP extension on OS X Snow Leopard”

1. Anna February 14, 2011 at 9:46 pm

   Thanks, this worked & saved a lot of time.

   Reply ↓
2. David March 11, 2011 at 8:42 pm

   Thank you for this helpful tip.

   Now if only your posting would work itself to the top of Google’s search results, you’d be helping a lot of frustrated Mac users.

   Reply ↓
3. lazantsy April 6, 2011 at 10:15 pm

   thanks a lot every times i try to install phpmyadmin on my localhost, i’m still have the same error now it’s finish.

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4. Taha Hesham May 1, 2011 at 1:04 am

   you are simple AWESOME. been looking around for hours, thanks alot!

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5. giulio May 17, 2011 at 12:14 pm

   thanks! you are a great man! It works perfectly!

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6. Tobias K. May 21, 2011 at 9:27 am

   Excellent post! Super clear instructions. Was a piece of cake loading mcrypt with this guide.

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7. Peter May 26, 2011 at 1:22 pm

   Excellent! Thanks a lot for this info. It now works!

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8. Richard Smith July 20, 2011 at 8:20 am

   Thanks, helped a lot.

   For anyone having compile issues it may be that, like me, you are on a 32 bit Mac, in which case change

   export CFLAGS="-arch x86_64"

   for

   export CFLAGS="-arch i386"

   And finally, the link to the latest PHP version has changed, the following will work.

   http://www.php.net/get/php-5.3.6.tar.gz/from/a/mirror

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9. sbditto85 August 4, 2011 at 4:36 am

   Thanks for the post! really saved me time!

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10. Chip Kreis August 10, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    Thank you so much! A lifesaver!

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11. David Simmer August 31, 2011 at 12:23 am

    This was perfectly helpful. Thank you.

    FYI, trying to build this with the latest PHP package (5.3.8 at the moment) failed. 5.3.3 is no longer available on php.net, but the 5.3.4 package installed cleanly.

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12. Dave September 2, 2011 at 11:07 pm

    Similar to what David said. Tried with 5.3.8 and it failed. 5.3.3 is still there to download (it’s below a more recent 5.2.x build) but I got 5.3.4 since that matches what my Snow Leopard shipped with. It worked!

    Thanks!!

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13. g.mays October 1, 2011 at 10:19 pm

    I couldn’t find my Leopard install disk, so I downloaded Xcode from this page:

    http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/mac/index.action

    Then clicked on:

    Xcode 3.2.6 and iOS SDK 4.3Mar 24, 2011
    (~4gb download)

    Installed mcrypt ok using your libmcrypt and php links

    Now I need freetype support for GD. Any ideas?

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    1. Glen Post authorOctober 2, 2011 at 8:39 am

       I don’t have Snow Leopard available to test Freetype, unfortunately. It actually comes pre-installed with OS X Lion: when you view the phpinfo details you can see the following:

       FreeType Support enabled
FreeType Linkage with freetype
FreeType Version 2.4.4

       What do you see with Snow Leopard?

       Reply ↓
14. g.mays October 2, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    GD is installed without reference to freetype.

    Reply ↓
15. sean November 16, 2011 at 11:08 am

    thanks very much… your instructions were by far the simplest I have seen. There was no need to build the whole of php from source as many people say.

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16. Alex March 21, 2012 at 8:55 pm

    Thanks for your directions. Works perfectly.

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17. lianne April 1, 2012 at 12:27 am

    Help me please, going crazy. After phpize and ./configure, I ran make and got this
    /bin/sh /Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/libtool –mode=compile cc -I. -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt -DPHP_ATOM_INC -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/include -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/main -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt -I/usr/include/php -I/usr/include/php/main -I/usr/include/php/TSRM -I/usr/include/php/Zend -I/usr/include/php/ext -I/usr/include/php/ext/date/lib -I/usr/local/include -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -g -O2 -c /Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/mcrypt.c -o mcrypt.lo
    mkdir .libs
    cc -I. -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt -DPHP_ATOM_INC -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/include -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/main -I/Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt -I/usr/include/php -I/usr/include/php/main -I/usr/include/php/TSRM -I/usr/include/php/Zend -I/usr/include/php/ext -I/usr/include/php/ext/date/lib -I/usr/local/include -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -g -O2 -c /Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/mcrypt.c -fno-common -DPIC -o .libs/mcrypt.o
    /Users/macbase/SourceCache/php-5.3.10/ext/mcrypt/mcrypt.c:283: error: ‘PHP_FE_END’ undeclared here (not in a function)
    make: *** [mcrypt.lo] Error 1

    and sudo make install won’t work either. Not even sure where to look for the answer.

    Reply ↓
    1. Glen Post authorApril 1, 2012 at 12:55 am

       You are using a version of the PHP source code that will not work (5.3.10). As per my instructions, you will need to use 5.3.4 to compile the mcrypt extension.

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18. lianne April 1, 2012 at 1:29 am

    Thank you so much. I will read more carefully next time.

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19. Arif July 10, 2012 at 1:25 am

    Hey Glen, I didn’t expect to find your site when searching for mcrypt! Useful stuff you have on here. Thanks mate! How’s the little one?

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20. Attila Fülöp August 14, 2012 at 11:09 am

    Thanks Glen. I also ran into lianne’s problem while trying to build the extension from php 5.3.8 sources on OSX 10.6.

    I have php 5.3.8 so I thought that’ll be the best. As Richard Smith recommended I used 5.3.6 and that compiled nicely.

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21. cowan January 20, 2013 at 10:33 pm

    great walk through. I altered the ./config options a bit but other than that mycrypt is installed and playing nicely with roundcube.

    thanks man

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22. Bryan Brodie March 18, 2013 at 9:49 pm

    Thanks, Glen, this was a huge help and worked perfectly!

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23. Maliheh June 15, 2013 at 11:37 pm

    Thanks for this guide. I followed the instruction, mcrypt is now active but the supported algorithm and mode is empty. can you help me with this?
    Supported ciphers none
    Supported modes none

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24. lvivnative November 26, 2014 at 7:14 pm

    Please help: when I try to run the ./configure command, I get a message “no such directory” I’m on 10.6.8. I was able to install the libmcrypt-2.5.8, but can not configure PHP. Thank you

    Reply ↓

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