Get Help

If you get stuck while using MacPorts and have a problem you can't figure out, we have a lot of resources to help you.

Documentation

The MacPorts Guide has a section dedicated to MacPorts installation issues, Chapter 2. Installing MacPorts and another one for general usage, Chapter 3: Using MacPorts.

The MacPorts FAQ is now an ongoing, user driven effort part of our Wiki, where anyone with a Trac account and MacPorts knowledge can contribute with information to help others.

All of our documentation is a work in progress, so if you spot an error or have a quesiton about some part of the document, let us know! This will help us

Mailing Lists

The General MacPorts mailing list is open to all for supscription. It is the best place for existing and new users alike to ask questions about MacPorts and MacPorts installed software. Please note that due to spam problems the mailing list will reject posts from non-subscribers.

It is recommended to check the list archive before posting a question, as some issues are aired fairly regularly and dealt with many times in a row. We try to be as helpful as possible, but if it's a common question our answers may be fairly short.

When posting a question to the mailing list, please included any information you think might be relevent to the problem, such as operating system and version you're using, Mac OS X 10.4.10 for example, whether you have any other third party software installed, in /usr/local for instance, and any error messages that MacPorts might give you (use the -v or -d port(1)'s flags to turn on verbose or debugging information, it's a lot easier for us to help you once these are used).

If you are a developer and need help with any part of the MacPorts internals, the development list is where you should direct your posts to, as this is where all discussion about MacPorts itself takes place. Archives for this mailing list are also available.

IRC

For more real-time discussion, the #MacPorts channel on the Freenode IRC network is generally where we hang out. Though it is generally helpful, please keep in mind that no one is obligated to help or even answer your question if you join IRC. Do not take it personally, simply ask your question on the users or development mailing lists instead.