Releases: macvim-dev/macvim
MacVim Snapshot 167
(Cancelled release. Superseded by snapshot 168)
This build has some issues with Apple Silicon and is replaced by release 168 instead.
Original release notes
Updated to Vim 8.2.2127.
Note: This release doesn't natively support Apple Silicon / M1 yet, but does work under Rosetta. See below.
Features
Big Sur / macOS 11
- MacVim now has an updated app icon (#1054), and preference pane / toolbars have been updated to match Big Sur's interface guidelines. (#1128)
- Fixed Touch Bar warnings when launching MacVim from the terminal. #1114
- SF Symbol characters will show up properly as double-width as most of these icons would take up more than one column. Note that these characters are specific to macOS and would not work in other platforms. #1129
Renderer / scrolling performance improvements
The Core Text renderer has been rewritten and is now much faster! Scrolling should not stutter and lag like before and generally it should feel a lot smoother now. Thanks to Sidney San Martín (@s4y) for the contribution. #858
With this change, the non-Core-Text renderer is now considered deprecated. The old renderer is accessible either through the Preference Pane (under Advanced) or by setting the defaults "MMRenderer" to 0. It works for now, but it will be removed in a future update as it has known bugs.
Menu Localization
Menus are now localized, see :h langmenu
for how Vim menu localization works. You can use set langmenu=none
to turn it off if you would like. #1099

There still exists a few menu items that are not localized, and the general MacVim GUI is not localized as well. If you would like to help, please use #1102 to coordinate with MacVim dev team.
Getting help / Help menu
-
Help menu's search bar now searches Vim documentation as well! See #1095.
-
Vimtutor is now bundled with MacVim, and you can access vimtutor from the Help menu (#1096).
-
There is also a link to the latest release notes as well (#1131).
General
Apple Silicon
This release does not contain a native universal app for Apple Silicon / M1 Macs yet. The release binary will still work under Rosetta, which should provide enough performance, but if you use Python/etc plugins, you need to make sure you have x86 versions of Python/etc installed (which is still the default for Homebrew as of this release).
MacVim is buildable under Apple Silicon, so if you need a native binary, you could build it yourself by downloading the source from the Github repository. See #1136 for progress on releasing a universal app for Apple Silicon.
Github Discusisons
MacVim has enabled the Github Discussions feature, which serves as a good spot for general discussions and questions. See #1130 and check it out!
Fixes
- Launching MacVim from the Dock with locales that use "," for decimal separators now works correctly. #11 (Vim 8.2.1738)
WinBar
menus (which are used by plugins like vimspector) now work properly and don't create dummy menu items. #918- Using
:browse tabnew
no longer crashes MacVim in terminal mode. #1107 (Vim 8.2.1842)
Misc
- Scripting languages versions:
- Python is now built against 3.9, up from 3.8.
- Lua is now built against 5.4, up from 5.3.
Compatibility
Requires macOS 10.9 or above.
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.4
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.9
- Ruby 2.7
MacVim Snapshot 166
Updated to Vim 8.2.1719.
Features
Touch Bar improvements
Touch Bar now supports submenus, and allows mixed icon/text displays using tmenu
. When in edit modes (e.g. insert), it will also display an emoji picker as well. See :help touchbar
for documentation. #1084
Fixes
- Window menu no longer shows duplicate "Enter Full Screen" or "Tile Window to Left of Screen" entries whenever the user switches among different MacVim windows. #566 #992
- Fix issue where going to full screen mode when titlebar appearance is set to "hidden" would result in lost focus of the window. #1078
- The password dialog box when using
:!sudo
or other commands that require password entry (macvim-askpass
) will no longer focus on Finder, and will keep the focus on MacVim. #1091 - Fix minor wrong tooltip in the "Appearance" preference pane. #1087
- "General" preference pane will now be correctly sized when Sparkle updater is disabled (e.g. Homebrew builds). #1089
- Misc issues were fixed by Vim upstream, e.g.
vimgrep
causing a crash, and odd behaviors with using Shift-O on the first line. #1082 #1083
Compatibility
Compatibility
Requires macOS 10.9 or above.
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.8
- Ruby 2.7
MacVim Snapshot 165
Vim patch 8.2.1456
Features
- New "Appearance" option pane (accessible via "⌘," or MacVim → Preferences) to allow customizing how MacVim looks. Users can now select how MacVim works with Dark Mode, and configure titlebar to be hidden or transparent. #912 #1038 #1056
- MacVim localization support. It now uses translated Vim messages for the specified locale. See
:help multilang-messages
to see how to configure it. #991
General:
- Python is now built against 3.8, up from 3.7. #1012
Fixes:
- Fix mvim:// protocol handler behavior. Reverts behavior back to old behavior (before snapshot-162), but add new fallback handling to try to handle poorly formed URLs that don't double-encode special characters. See
:help macvim://
. #1055 - Can now change tabs using menu and keyboard shortcuts (⌘{ / ⌘} / ⌘T) when in terminal mode. #1045
- Fix crash during MacVim launch in Snapshot 164 (8.2.1424) due to dynamic library linkage. #1073
Targets macOS 10.9+
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.8
- Ruby 2.7
MacVim Snapshot 164
(Cancelled release. Superseded by snapshot 165)
brew install gettext
to work around it.
Original release notes
Vim patch 8.2.1424
Features
- New "Appearance" option pane (accessible via "⌘," or MacVim → Preferences) to allow customizing how MacVim looks. Users can now select how MacVim works with Dark Mode, and configure titlebar to be hidden or transparent. #912 #1038 #1056
- MacVim localization support. It now uses translated Vim messages for the specified locale. See
:help multilang-messages
to see how to configure it. #991
General:
- Python is now built against 3.8, up from 3.7. #1012
Fixes:
- Fix mvim:// protocol handler behavior. Reverts behavior back to old behavior (before snapshot-162), but add new fallback handling to try to handle poorly formed URLs that don't double-encode special characters. See
:help macvim://
. #1055 - Can now change tabs using menu and keyboard shortcuts (⌘{ / ⌘} / ⌘T) when in terminal mode. #1045
Targets macOS 10.9+
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.8
- Ruby 2.7
MacVim Snapshot 163
Vim patch 8.2.539
General:
- MacVim now reports its app category to be "Productivity" for Screen
Time. #1032
Fixes:
- Fix MacVim not reporting its version number correctly. #1011
- Fix mvim:// protocol handler not handling line number. #1020
- Fix opening MacVim from the Dock not setting UTF-8 in locale. #1033
- Buffer menu now doesn't show stale menu items from command-line
windows or terminal windows. #1025
Targets macOS 10.9+
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.7
- Ruby 2.7
MacVim Snapshot 162
Vim patch 8.2.319
General:
- MacVim is now upgraded to Vim 8.2!
Fixes:
- Fix mvim:// protocol handler to handle spaces in file names. #1002
- Allow the fullscreen toggle on the Touch Bar to be disabled. #997
- Fixed potential infinite recursion draw crash. #985
Targets macOS 10.9+
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.7
- Ruby 2.7
MacVim Snapshot 161
Vim patch 8.1.2234
Fixes:
- Fix scripting languages not working (e.g. Python) in binary releases
by using the correct entitlements. #979
Targets macOS 10.9+
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.7
- Ruby 2.6
MacVim Snapshot 160
Vim patch 8.1.2224
General:
- MacVim now requires macOS 10.9, up from 10.8.
- MacVim binary is now notaraized by Apple. This should make it open
properly without a security warning in macOS 10.15 Catalina. #959 #825
Features:
- Make mouse cursor higher contrast under macOS 10.13 or older. #910
Fixes:
- Fix OS appearance (dark vs light mode) detection not working. See
:help OSAppearanceChanged
for more info on the feature. #973 - Fix spell checker flagging first words in line. #971 (Vim 8.1.2172)
- Fix wrong highlighting color scheme. #960 (Vim 8.1.2176)
Misc:
- Sparkle updater has been updated to 1.22.00. #963
Targets macOS 10.9+
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.7
- Ruby 2.6
MacVim Snapshot 159
Vim patch 8.1.2168
Features:
- Can now use autocommand to detect an OS appearance change (dark vs
light mode). See:help OSAppearanceChanged
. #766
Fixes:
- Fix text being clipped in macOS Catalina. #905
- Fix "E432: Tags file not sorted" issue in macOS Catalina. #953. (Vim
8.1.2152)
Targets macOS 10.8+
Script interfaces have compatibility with these versions:
- Lua 5.3
- Perl 5.18
- Python2 2.7
- Python3 3.7
- Ruby 2.6
MacVim Snapshot 158
(Cancelled release. Superseded by snapshot 159)