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How to install jekyll on Apple M1 Macbook

Utpal Kumar   2 minute read      

If you have recently bought a M1 mac and have been doing blogging using Jekyll, then you must have experienced that installing Jekyll on the M1 architecture is not so straightforward. We will see how we can install Jekyll for M1 Mac.

In this post, we will see how we can install Jekyll on Apple’s M1 Macbook Pro, Air or Mac Mini. If you have recently bought a M1 mac and have been doing blogging using Jekyll, then you must have experienced that installing Jekyll on the M1 architecture is not so straightforward. We will see how we can install Jekyll for M1 Mac.

Before I share with you the commands I followed to install the Jekyll locally, I must share with you my OS. I am using MacBook Air (M1, 2020) with macOS BigSur (11.6).

Requires Xcode installation

If you have recently purchased your Macbook, then you may not have installed Xcode yet. Xcode comes with a set of libraries required by other programs including for our installation of Jekyll.

xcode-select --install

Requires Homebrew

I use Homebrew to install third party packages on my Mac. It can be installed by simply:

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

Install Rbenv

We need to install a Ruby version that is compatible with ARM processor.

brew install rbenv ruby-build

Install ARM based Ruby 3.0.0

rbenv install 3.0.0
rbenv global 3.0.0
ruby -v
rbenv rehash

Add the ruby and gems path to your shell configuration

Now, add rbenv to bash so that it loads every time you open a terminal

if you are using zsh

echo 'eval "$(rbenv init - zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

if you are using bash

echo 'eval "$(rbenv init - bash)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

If you are not sure which shell you are using, you can check that using the command:

echo $SHELL

Install Jekyll

Finally, we can proceed to install Jekyll and Bundler. We will be doing the local install (it does not require sudo privileges).

gem install --user-install bundler jekyll

if you are using zsh

Replace 3.0.0 with your ruby version. You can check your ruby version by ruby -v. If your ruby version is 2.7, then use 2.7.0.

echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.0.0/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc

if you are using bash

Replace 3.0.0 with your ruby version. You can check your ruby version by ruby -v. If your ruby version is 2.7, then use 2.7.0.

echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/ruby/bin:/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.0.0/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

More updates

For M1 Mac, we may need to do a few extra steps - update bundler, add webrick, and rebuild everything.

bundle update --bundler
bundle add webrick
bundle install --redownload

Check installation

Now, we can run our example blog. Navigate to your blog and then run the following commands:

  • If you have not done local install 
    gem install bundler jekyll
  • If you don’t have a blog, then create one using 
    jekyll new my-awesome-site
cd my-awesome-site

You can run the blog locally using the command:

bundle exec jekyll serve

Hope it works in your case! Enjoy your M1 Mac!!

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