Visual Studio
Visual Studio for Mac is a Microsoft integrated development environment for building, editing, debugging, and managing .NET and C# projects on macOS.
What is Visual Studio?
Visual Studio for Mac is a native macOS integrated development environment for developers working with .NET and C#. It provides a single workspace for writing code, organizing solutions, building apps, and debugging projects on a Mac. Common uses include creating ASP.NET applications, class libraries, console tools, and mobile or game-related C# projects that fit supported workloads. The editor includes project navigation, code editing assistance, debugging tools, and source control integration that help developers manage everyday programming tasks. Visual Studio for Mac was published by Microsoft Corporation and served as the Mac edition of Visual Studio. Microsoft retired Visual Studio for Mac on August 31, 2024, so existing installations are now legacy software rather than a current development environment.
Key features
- Create and manage .NET and C# projects in a full IDE
- Edit code with syntax highlighting, navigation, and refactoring tools
- Build and run applications directly from the development workspace
- Debug apps with breakpoints, variable inspection, and step-through tools
- Organize multi-project solutions and project dependencies
- Work with Git-based source control inside the IDE
Review app leftovers with diCleaner
Inspect caches, support files, containers, and login items before cleaning.
Safety overview
Status: Use with caution
Visual Studio for Mac is legitimate developer software, but it is no longer supported and no longer receives servicing or security updates. That matters because development tools often open source code, packages, and project dependencies from many places. If you still use it, keep it limited to older projects that specifically require it, avoid using it for sensitive work, and be cautious with untrusted extensions or code.
Recommendation: Keep Visual Studio for Mac only if you still need it for an existing workflow or an older project that depends on it. If you no longer use it, removing it can free disk space and reduce the chance of relying on unsupported software. For active development on macOS, move to a supported tool such as Visual Studio Code or another current IDE that fits your stack.
Common paths
/Applications/Visual Studio.app
Cache paths
~/Library/Caches/VisualStudio~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.visual-studio
Support paths
~/Library/Application Support/VisualStudio~/Library/Application Support/com.microsoft.visual-studio
Preference paths
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.visual-studio.plist
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