How to Install Flutter on Windows, Mac, & Linux

Flutter is one of the fastest-growing frameworks for building cross-platform mobile, web, and desktop applications. Whether you’re a professional developer or just getting started, learning how to install Flutter is the first step toward creating powerful apps with a single codebase.

This guide will walk you through the Flutter installation process on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a well-known, open-source UI software development kit (SDK) created by Google. It allows developers to produce natively compiled applications for mobile (Android, iOS), desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux), and web platforms—all from one codebase. Flutter uses the Dart programming language and provides a rich set of pre-built widgets for modern, responsive UI design.

Before we start building apps with Flutter, we need to prepare our development environment. These steps include:

1. Installing the Flutter SDK
2. Installing Android Studio
3. Installing Xcode (Mac only)

We will cover each step in this article. Let’s get started!

Installing the Flutter SDK

We need the Flutter SDK to create Flutter apps. SDKs include all the necessary tools to allow developers to build applications. The Flutter SDK includes:

• Dart programming language tools
• Utilities such as the flutter command
• Libraries for widgets and animation

Let’s cover the Flutter SDK installation steps for different operating systems one by one.

How to install the Flutter SDK on Windows

Follow these steps to install the Flutter SDK on Windows:

Step 1: We need to first download the Flutter SDK for Windows. This is a .zip file that we need to unzip into a local directory, for example, C:\tools\flutter.

Step 2: Now that we have the Flutter SDK unzipped into a local directory, we need to tell Windows where to find the SDK. To do this, we can use the Control Panel on Windows to update the path variable.

To open the Control Panel, use the search box at the bottom of the screen:

Step 3: When the Control Panel appears, select System and Security.

Step 4: Select System.

Step 5: Select Advanced system settings.

Step 6: We need to update our path to include a new entry to the Flutter SDK’s bin folder. For example, the path could be C:\tools\flutter\bin. After entering this information, hit OK and close the control panel.

We now have our system path set up and can verify our installation. Let’s open up a new terminal and enter the following command to check our Flutter SDK installation:

flutter --version 

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The output should look similar to the following:

Flutter 3.3.10 • channel stable • https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git 
Framework • revision 135454af32 (6 weeks ago) • 2022-12-15 07:36:55 -0800 
Engine • revision 3316dd8728 
Tools • Dart 2.18.6 • DevTools 2.15.0 

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When we see this output, we know we have successfully installed the Flutter SDK!

How to install the Flutter SDK on Mac

Follow these steps to install the Flutter SDK on Mac:

Step 1: Determining the Mac chipset

The chipset of our Mac will be either Apple (arm64) or Intel (x64). We should check this before we begin with our installation. First, open the Apple menu in the top left corner of your screen and select About This Mac. Selecting will open a dialog where we can find our chipset information.

Make a note of which chipset your Mac is using so the correct version of the Flutter SDK can be downloaded.

Step 2: Downloading the Flutter SDK

Download the Flutter SDK for the correct chipset and extract the zip into a new Flutter folder on our hard drive. For example, we could put the Flutter SDK in our user directory /Users/codecademy/flutter. Note that the word codecademy should be replaced with our username on the Mac.

Step 3: Determining the Mac shell version

We now need to tell our Mac about the Flutter SDK. This requires the terminal to update our shell configuration. On a Mac, the shell is responsible for launching other programs.

We can open up a terminal by typing ⌘/Command + Space and typing terminal.

Once the terminal is open, type the following to determine the shell our Mac uses:

echo $SHELL 

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The command will output the active shell in use.

If we see /bin/bash, we will modify .bashrc. If we see /bin/zsh, we will instead modify .zshrc.

Both files, .bashrc or .zshrc, reside in the home folder. Let’s edit them and add a path to the Flutter SDK.

Step 4: Editing your Mac path

Now that we know the shell script to use, we can edit the path to include an additional entry for the bin folder inside our Flutter SDK folder.

We will use the nano editor, but you can use any editor for this step. Another example is vi.

In our terminal, we first open the script file:

nano /Users/codecademy/.zshrc 

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Note that the username codecademy should be replaced with our username on the Mac.

Let’s add a line to the end of this script file:

export PATH="$PATH:/Users/codecademy/flutter/bin" 

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Again, use the username instead of codecademy here.

Next, hit ⌃/Control + o to save the file. Hit enter to confirm the file name.

We can exit now with ⌃/Control + x

We should now close the terminal program and reopen it again for the change to take effect.

Open a new terminal and test the Flutter SDK by entering the following command:

flutter --version 

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The output should look similar to the following:

Flutter 3.3.10 • channel stable • https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git 
Framework • revision 135454af32 (6 weeks ago) • 2022-12-15 07:36:55 -0800 
Engine • revision 3316dd8728 
Tools • Dart 2.18.6 • DevTools 2.15.0 

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When we see this output, we know we have successfully installed the Flutter SDK!

Once we’ve installed the SDK, we must install our IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

Installing Android Studio

Android Studio is Google’s IDE that we use to build apps for Android devices. Android Studio includes:

• An IDE with a powerful code editor
• Android SDK to build and package Android applications
• Emulators of different virtual Android devices
• The ability to connect to physical Android devices

Follow the installation instructions for your system.

Installing Android Studio on Windows

To install Android Studio, we need to download the Android Studio installation program. Once downloaded, we will launch the installer and follow the steps.

Once finished, the Setup program will close, and Android Studio will open. It will launch a wizard to set up our development environment and download any necessary components.

Installing Android Studio Command Line Tools

Next, we need to install the Android SDK Command Line Tools. To do this, we:

• Launch Android Studio
• Go to More Actions and choose SDK Manager

In the SDK Manager under System Setup, click the checkbox for Android SDK Command-line Tools (latest):

Installing Android Studio plugin

When we launch Android Studio, we will see an option to install plugins to extend Android Studio. We need to install the plugins to allow for Flutter development.

Launch Android Studio and select the Plugins item in the navigation list on the left side.

After selecting Plugins, we enter flutter as a search term in the Marketplace. We will install the Flutter plugin. Note that this will also install the Dart plugin as it is required.

Once the plugin has finished installing, Android Studio will restart, and we will now see an option to create a Flutter app!

Installing Android Studio on macOS

To install Android Studio, we need to do the following:

• Navigate to the Android Studio homepage and click on the Download Android Studio button.

• Navigate to the downloads folder and double-click on the downloaded file.

• Once the installer opens, drag and drop the Android Studio icon into the Applications folder. Doing this will copy Android Studio into the Applications folder on the Mac.

We can now launch Android Studio from the Applications folder! Let’s do that so Android Studio can download updates or necessary files.

Installing the Flutter plugin

When we launch Android Studio, we will see an option to install plugins to extend Android Studio. We need to install the plugins to allow for Flutter development.

On the left side, we select Plugins.

Next, we enter flutter as a search term in the Marketplace, then install the Flutter plugin. Note that this will also install the Dart plugin as it is required.

Once the plug-in has finished installing, Android Studio will restart, and we will now see an option to create a Flutter app!

Next, let’s discuss how to install Xcode on macOS.

Installing Xcode (Mac only)

To develop for Mac, we need Xcode. Xcode only runs on macOS and will allow us to build Flutter apps for use on iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads.

Xcode is Apple’s integrated development environment (IDE) that we use to build apps for Apple products such as the iPhone and Mac. Similar to Android Studio, Xcode includes:

• An IDE for writing apps
• Device simulators for different iOS versions
• Tools such as compilers and debuggers

We cannot run Xcode on a PC. However, developers can create Flutter apps on PCs and then later build them on a Mac with Xcode.

To install Xcode on a Mac, first navigate to the Xcode on the Mac App Store page and click on Open App Store.

This will open the Apple App Store app for Xcode. It will display details about the Xcode application.

Click on the download icon to install Xcode.

Installing Brew and Cocoapods

Another component we need for Apple development is Cocoapods. Cocoapods is an open-source package management tool for the Xcode build environment. It is necessary to install this tool as Flutter synchronizes necessary packages with the Dart environment.

We can get Cocoapods using a tool called Brew. Brew is an open-source and freely available installation tool for our Mac. We will need to install this first. To do this, open a terminal and type:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" 

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Once this is completed, we can use brew to install Cocoapods.

We will need to open a terminal and type:

brew install cocoapods 

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Our Mac should now be set up for Flutter development and running Flutter apps on iOS and macOS devices.

Conclusion

Learning how to install Flutter is the foundation for creating high-quality, cross-platform apps. Once you have Flutter SDK, Android Studio, and (for Mac users) Xcode set up, you’re ready to start building. Flutter’s simplicity and speed make it a popular choice for developers worldwide.

If you want to enhance your Flutter development skills, check out the Intro to Flutter course on Codecademy.

Frequently asked questions

1. How do I install Flutter on Windows 10?

1. Download the Flutter SDK from the Flutter website
2. Extract it to C:\src\flutter
3. Add C:\src\flutter\bin to your PATH environment variable
4. Type flutter --version in the command prompt to check installation

2. Do I need to install Dart for Flutter?

No. Flutter comes bundled with the Dart SDK, so you don’t need to install it separately.

3. Is Flutter easy to learn?

Yes. Flutter is considered beginner-friendly. Its widget-based structure and hot-reload feature make app development more intuitive and faster to learn.

4. How to check if Flutter is installed?

To check if Flutter is installed, open a terminal or command prompt and type:

flutter --version 

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This will show if Flutter and its dependencies are correctly installed.

5. Is Flutter faster than Python?

Flutter is optimized for UI rendering and mobile app performance, often faster than Python-based frameworks for mobile development. However, Python is stronger for data science and backend tasks.