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Community Edition

Install MongoDB Community on macOS

Select your installation method to view instructions for MongoDB Community Edition.

Note

By default, MongoDB Community Edition does not include MongoDB Search. To use MongoDB Search with MongoDB Community, you must install MongoDB Search with Docker or Linux separately.

Install MongoDB Community Edition on macOS

Overview

Use this tutorial to install MongoDB 9.0 Community Edition on macOS using the third-party Homebrew package manager.

Starting with MongoDB 4.4.1, installing MongoDB through Homebrew also installs the MongoDB Database Tools. See Using the MongoDB Database Tools for more information.

MongoDB Version

This tutorial installs MongoDB 9.0 Community Edition. To install a different version of MongoDB Community, use the version drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of this page to select the documentation for that version.

Considerations

Platform Support

MongoDB 9.0 Community Edition supports macOS 14 or later, and requires a Haswell or newer CPU architecture.

For more information, see Platform Support.

Production Notes

Before deploying MongoDB in a production environment, see the Production Notes for Self-Managed Deployments document for performance considerations and configuration recommendations.

Install MongoDB Community Edition

Prerequisites

Ensure your system meets each of the following prerequisites. You only need to perform each prerequisite step once on your system. If you have already performed the prerequisite steps as part of an earlier MongoDB installation using Homebrew, you can skip to the installation procedure.

Install Xcode Command-Line Tools

Homebrew requires the Xcode command-line tools from Apple's Xcode.

  • Install the Xcode command-line tools by running the following command in your macOS Terminal:

    xcode-select --install
Install Homebrew

macOS does not include the Homebrew brew package by default.

Installing MongoDB 9.0 Community Edition

Follow these steps to install MongoDB Community Edition using Homebrew's brew package manager. Be sure that you have followed the installation prerequisites above before proceeding.

  1. Tap the MongoDB Homebrew Tap to download the official Homebrew formula for MongoDB and the Database Tools, by running the following command in your macOS Terminal:

    brew tap mongodb/brew

    Then, mark the tap as a trusted source:

    brew trust mongodb/brew

    If you have already done this for a previous installation of MongoDB, you can skip this step.

  2. To update Homebrew and all existing formulae:

    brew update

  3. To install MongoDB, run the following command in your macOS Terminal application:

    brew install mongodb-community@9.0

Tip

Alternatively, you can specify a previous version of MongoDB if desired. You can also maintain multiple versions of MongoDB side by side in this manner.

Tip

If you have previously installed an older version of the formula, you may encounter a ChecksumMismatchError. To resolve, see Troubleshooting ChecksumMismatchError.

The installation includes the following binaries:

In addition, the installation creates the following files and directories at the location specified below, depending on your Apple hardware:

Intel Processor
Apple Silicon Processor

/usr/local/etc/mongod.conf

/opt/homebrew/etc/mongod.conf

/usr/local/var/log/mongodb

/opt/homebrew/var/log/mongodb

/usr/local/var/mongodb

/opt/homebrew/var/mongodb

See Apple's documentation for the current list of Apple hardware using the Apple Silicon processor. You can also run the following command to check where brew has installed these files and directories:

brew --prefix

Starting with MongoDB 4.4.1, the installation also includes the MongoDB Database Tools. See Using the MongoDB Database Tools for more information.

Run MongoDB Community Edition

Follow these steps to run MongoDB Community Edition. These instructions assume that you are using the default settings.

You can run MongoDB as a macOS service using brew, or you can run MongoDB manually as a background process.

Note

For macOS systems that have installed MongoDB using the Homebrew installation method, the open files limit might not be automatically set when starting MongoDB through brew services. You might need to manually configure the ulimit values.

See Ulimit Settings for more information.

  • To run MongoDB (i.e. the mongod process) as a macOS service, run:

    brew services start mongodb-community@9.0

    To stop a mongod running as a macOS service, use the following command as needed:

    brew services stop mongodb-community@9.0

  • To run mongod manually as a background process using a config file:

    • If your deployment does not use TLS connections, use the --fork option:

      • For macOS running on Intel processors, run:

        mongod --config /usr/local/etc/mongod.conf --fork

      • For macOS running on Apple Silicon processors, run:

        mongod --config /opt/homebrew/etc/mongod.conf --fork

      • If your deployment uses TLS connections, use GNU Screen.

        • For macOS running on Intel processors:

          1

          Start your screen.

          screen -S <name-of-screen>
          2

          Start mongod.

          mongod --config /usr/local/etc/mongod.conf
          3

          Detach from screen.

          Detach from your screen by typing Ctrl+a, then clicking d.

          4

          View all active screens.

          screen -ls

        • For macOS running on Apple Silicon processors:

          1

          Start your screen.

          screen -S <name-of-screen>
          2

          Start mongod.

          mongod --config /opt/homebrew/etc/mongod.conf
          3

          Detach from screen.

          Detach from your screen by typing Ctrl+a, then clicking d.

          4

          View all active screens.

          screen -ls

  • To run mongod manually as a background process specifying --dbpath and --logpath on the command line, run:

    mongod --dbpath /path/to/dbdir --logpath /path/to/mongodb.log --fork

    To stop a mongod running as a background process, connect to the mongod using mongosh, and issue the shutdown command as needed.

Both methods use the mongod.conf file created during the install. You can add your own MongoDB configuration options to this file as well.

Note

macOS Prevents mongod From Opening

macOS may prevent mongod from running after installation. If you receive a security error when starting mongod indicating that the developer could not be identified or verified, do the following to grant mongod access to run:

  • Open System Settings

  • Click Privacy & Security in the sidebar.

  • In the Security section, click the Open Anyway button to the right of the message about mongod.

To verify that MongoDB is running, perform one of the following:

  • If you started MongoDB as a macOS service:

    brew services list

    You should see the service mongodb-community listed as started.

  • If you started MongoDB manually as a background process:

    ps aux | grep -v grep | grep mongod

    You should see your mongod process in the output.

You can also view the log file to see the current status of your mongod process: /usr/local/var/log/mongodb/mongo.log.

Connect and Use MongoDB

To begin using MongoDB, connect mongosh to the running instance. From a new terminal, issue the following:

mongosh

For information on CRUD (Create,Read,Update,Delete) operations, see:

Using the MongoDB Database Tools

Starting in MongoDB 4.4.1, installing MongoDB through brew also installs the MongoDB Database Tools.

The MongoDB Database Tools are a collection of command-line utilities for working with a MongoDB deployment, including data backup and import/export tools like mongoimport and mongodump as well as monitoring tools like mongotop.

Once you have installed the MongoDB Server in the steps above, the Database Tools are available directly from the command line in your macOS Terminal application. For example you could run mongotop against your running MongoDB instance by invoking it in your macOS Terminal like so:

mongotop

It should start up, connect to your running mongod, and start reporting usage statistics.

See the MongoDB Database Tools Documentation for usage information for each of the Database Tools.

Additional Information

Localhost Binding by Default

By default, MongoDB launches with bindIp set to 127.0.0.1, which binds to the localhost network interface. This means that the mongod can only accept connections from clients that are running on the same machine. Remote clients will not be able to connect to the mongod, and the mongod will not be able to initialize a replica set unless this value is set to a valid network interface.

This value can be configured either:

  • in the MongoDB configuration file with bindIp, or

  • via the command-line argument --bind_ip

Warning

Before you bind your instance to a publicly-accessible IP address, you must secure your cluster from unauthorized access. For a complete list of security recommendations, see Security Checklist for Self-Managed Deployments. At minimum, consider enabling authentication and hardening network infrastructure.

For more information on configuring bindIp, see IP Binding in Self-Managed Deployments.

Troubleshooting ChecksumMismatchError

If you have previously installed an older version of the formula, you may encounter a ChecksumMismatchError resembling the following:

Error: An exception occurred within a child process:
  ChecksumMismatchError: SHA256 mismatch
Expected: c7214ee7bda3cf9566e8776a8978706d9827c1b09017e17b66a5a4e0c0731e1f
  Actual: 6aa2e0c348e8abeec7931dced1f85d4bb161ef209c6af317fe530ea11bbac8f0
 Archive: /Users/kay/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/a6696157a9852f392ec6323b4bb697b86312f0c345d390111bd51bb1cbd7e219--mongodb-macos-x86_64-4.2.0.tgz
To retry an incomplete download, remove the file above.

To fix:

  1. Remove the downloaded .tgz archive.

  2. Retap the formula.

    brew untap mongodb/brew && brew tap mongodb/brew

  3. Retry the install.

    brew install mongodb-community@9.0

Install MongoDB Community on macOS using .tgz Tarball

Overview

Use this tutorial to manually install MongoDB 9.0 Community Edition on macOS using a downloaded .tgz tarball.

MongoDB Version

This tutorial installs MongoDB 9.0 Community Edition. To install a different version of MongoDB Community, use the version drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of this page to select the documentation for that version.

Installation Method

While you can install MongoDB manually using a downloaded .tgz tarball as described in this document, we recommend using the brew package manager on your system if possible. Using a package manager automatically installs all needed dependencies, provides an example mongod.conf file, and simplifies future upgrade and maintenance tasks.

➤ See Install MongoDB using the brew Package Manager for instructions.

Considerations

MongoDB Shell, mongosh

When you use the .tgz package to install the server, you need to follow the mongosh installation instructions to download and install mongosh separately.

Platform Support

MongoDB 9.0 Community Edition supports macOS 14 or later, and requires a Haswell or newer CPU architecture.

For more information, see Platform Support.

Production Notes

Before deploying MongoDB in a production environment, see the Production Notes for Self-Managed Deployments document for performance considerations and configuration recommendations.

Install MongoDB Community Edition

To manually install MongoDB Community Edition from the .tgz, select the tab that corresponds with your Mac's processor and complete the following steps:

1

Download the tarball.

Download the MongoDB Community tgz tarball from the following link:

➤

MongoDB Download Center

  1. In the Version dropdown, select the version of MongoDB to download.

  2. In the Platform dropdown, select macOS.

  3. In the Package dropdown, select tgz.

  4. Click Download.

2

Extract the files from the downloaded archive.

tar -zxvf mongodb-macos-x86_64-9.0.tgz

If your web browser automatically unzips the file as part of the download, the file ends in .tar instead.

3

Ensure the binaries are in a directory listed in your PATH environment variable.

The MongoDB binaries are in the bin/ directory of the tarball. You can either:

  • Copy the binaries into a directory listed in your PATH variable, such as /usr/local/bin. Replace /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/ with your installation directory.

    sudo cp /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/bin/* /usr/local/bin/

  • Create symbolic links to the binaries from a directory listed in your PATH variable, such as /usr/local/bin. Replace /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/ with your installation directory.

    sudo ln -s  /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/bin/* /usr/local/bin/

Run MongoDB Community Edition

ulimit Considerations

Most Unix-like operating systems limit the system resources that a process may use. These limits may negatively impact MongoDB operation, and should be adjusted. See UNIX ulimit Settings for Self-Managed Deployments for the recommended settings for your platform.

Note

If the ulimit value for number of open files is under 64000, MongoDB generates a startup warning.

Procedure

Follow these steps to run MongoDB Community Edition. These instructions assume that you are using the default settings.

1
Create the data directory.

Before you start MongoDB for the first time, you must create the directory to which the mongod process will write data.

For example, to create the ~/data/db directory:

sudo mkdir -p ~/data/db
2
Create the log directory.

You must also create the directory in which the mongod process will write its log file:

For example, to create the ~/data/log/mongodb directory:

sudo mkdir -p ~/data/log/mongodb
3
Set permissions for the data and log directories.

Ensure that the user account running mongod has read and write permissions for these two directories. If you are running mongod as your own user account, and you just created the two directories above, they should already accessible to your user. Otherwise, you can use chown to set ownership, substituting the appropriate user:

sudo chown <user> ~/data/db
sudo chown <user> ~/data/log/mongodb
4
Run MongoDB.

To run MongoDB, run the mongod process at the system prompt, providing the two parameters dbpath and logpath from above, and the nohup command to run mongod in the background. Alternatively, you may choose to store the values for dbpath, logpath, and many other parameters in a configuration file.

Run mongod with command-line parameters

Run the mongod process at the system prompt, providing the three necessary parameters directly on the command-line:

nohup mongod --dbpath ~/path/to/dbdir --logpath ~/path/to/mongodb.log >/dev/null &
Run mongod with a configuration file

Run the mongod process at the system prompt, providing the path to a configuration file with the config parameter:

mongod --config /usr/local/etc/mongod.conf

macOS may prevent mongod from running after installation. If you receive a security error when starting mongod indicating that the developer could not be identified or verified, do the following to grant mongod access to run:

  • Open System Settings

  • Click Privacy & Security in the sidebar.

  • In the Security section, click the Open Anyway button to the right of the message about mongod.

5
Verify that MongoDB has started successfully.

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully:

ps aux | grep -v grep | grep mongod

If you do not see a mongod process running, check the logfile for any error messages.

6
Begin using MongoDB.

Start a mongosh session on the same host machine as the mongod. You can run mongosh without any command-line options to connect to a mongod that is running on your localhost with the default port of 27017:

mongosh

For more information on connecting using mongosh, such as to connect to a mongod instance running on a different host and/or port, see the mongosh documentation.

To help you start using MongoDB, MongoDB provides Getting Started Guides in various driver editions. See Getting Started with MongoDB for the available editions.

Additional Information

Localhost Binding by Default

By default, MongoDB launches with bindIp set to 127.0.0.1, which binds to the localhost network interface. This means that the mongod can only accept connections from clients that are running on the same machine. Remote clients will not be able to connect to the mongod, and the mongod will not be able to initialize a replica set unless this value is set to a valid network interface.

This value can be configured either:

  • in the MongoDB configuration file with bindIp, or

  • via the command-line argument --bind_ip

Warning

Before you bind your instance to a publicly-accessible IP address, you must secure your cluster from unauthorized access. For a complete list of security recommendations, see Security Checklist for Self-Managed Deployments. At minimum, consider enabling authentication and hardening network infrastructure.

For more information on configuring bindIp, see IP Binding in Self-Managed Deployments.

Next Steps

After you install MongoDB Community Edition, you can:

Upgrade Community Edition to Enterprise Edition Tutorials

Important

Do not use these instructions to upgrade to another release version.

For general guidance on MongoDB version numbering, release types, and upgrade paths, see MongoDB Versions and Upgrade Paths.

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