Flutter new install - out of date instructions, especially in dependencies

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I have been trying to install flutter on a brand new mac, and there has been a lot of troubleshooting involved. It started with the system ruby being out of date, recommendation elsewhere not to upgrade the system ruby because that can break MacOS, the need to install a user ruby in parallel but get it to apply globally. Most of the forum posts I saw elsewhere on how to do that didn’t work. brew doesn’t work. Putting lines in .zshrc doesn’t work (terminal only, not visible elsewhere). rbenv doesn’t work. All of the above end up with a hodgepodge of system ruby colliding with user ruby and cocoapods not knowing which way is up. What worked for that first issue is rvm.

There’s been a lot more. Basically every stage of installing dependencies has failed one way or another and involved a lot of troubleshooting at every step.

So I want to capture here instructions that have worked thus far for me.

NOTE: Flutter forum doesn’t allow more than 2 links per post, and I tried to use substitutions but they’re onto me. :smiley: I’m going to have to fragment this by replying to myself.

Let’s get to it… In a terminal:
curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
source /Users/$USER/.rvm/scripts/rvm
rvm install ruby-3.4.4
rvm --default use 3.4.4
gem install cocoapods

This does seem to get the job done. System ruby is intact, user ruby is in place cocoapods is good in the context of user ruby. Proof:

briantietz@Brians-Mac-mini ~ % which ruby
/Users/briantietz/.rvm/rubies/ruby-3.4.4/bin/ruby
briantietz@Brians-Mac-mini ~ % ruby -v
ruby 3.4.4 (2025-05-14 revision a38531fd3f) +PRISM [x86_64-darwin24]
briantietz@Brians-Mac-mini ~ % /usr/bin/ruby -v
ruby 2.6.10p210 (2022-04-12 revision 67958) [universal.x86_64-darwin24]

Moving on…

Download, move to /Applications
Launch Visual Studio Code
Cmd+Shift+P
shell command: install ‘code’ command in PATH
Quit Visual Studio Code

In a new terminal:
code
click “extensions” four squares icon in left sidebar
search: flutter, install
Cmd+Shift+P
flutter
Download SDK
In ~ new folder named development
Clone flutter to there

In a new terminal:
sudo vi /etc/paths
add line at end (probably need to replace $USER with the actual user name):
/Users/$USER/development/flutter/bin
sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
sudo xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch

Quit Visual Studio Code
In a new terminal:
flutter doctor

That’s part 1. As far as I can go with the links limit. To be continued…

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@CraigLabenz please forward to the documentation team

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PART 2:
I actually figured out the last bit. No longer a solicitation for help, just what works.

Need JDK for android studio.
https://download.oracle.com/java/24/latest/jdk-24_macos-x64_bin.dmg
Install JDK

Download Android Studio Meerkat Feature Drop
mount dmg, drag to applications
eject dmg
launch android studio
next → custom → all

Welcome to Android Studio
More Actions
SDK Manager
SDK tools
Add Android SDK Command-line Tools
SDK platforms
If you want maximum backward compatibility, remove Android 15.0 (“VanillaIceCream”) API 35 and add Android 11.0 (“R”) API 30 (29 is the minimum required by flutter, but SDK doesn’t appear until 30, not sure if this is accurate or why, but that’s what the install preview indicates)
OK
Finish
Quit android studio

In terminal (likely need to replace $USER with the actual user name):
launchctl setenv ANDROID_HOME /Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk
sudo vi /etc/paths
add lines:
/Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools
/Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin

Close and reopen terminal
sdkmanager --licenses
accept all

flutter doctor

Viola! All green checks except for chrome, which doesn’t matter to me since I’m interested in iOS / android cross platform mobile app development.

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