Install Lua on your Mac
Download Lua, open it for the first time, and sign in. About five minutes.
What you need
- A Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer). Intel Macs are not supported.
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
- Your invite email with the download link, or a spot on the waitlist.
Download Lua
Open the download link from your invite email, or go to the Get Lua page. You get a file called Lua.dmg.
Open it and drag Lua into your Applications folder. If you open Lua straight from Downloads, it offers to move itself there for you.
Open it the first time
Apple hasn’t checked this early version of Lua yet (it isn’t “notarized”), so macOS asks before opening it the first time. You only do this once:
- Right-click Lua in Applications and choose Open, then Open again.
- Or: try to open Lua, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway.
A “Starting Lua…” window appears while it gets ready. If anything goes wrong at launch, it shows Retry, Send diagnostics or Quit.
Sign in
Sign in with Google, or with your email: Lua sends you a 6-digit code. Google sign-in opens in your browser and brings you back to Lua.
macOS may ask once whether Lua can use your Keychain. That is where Lua keeps your sign-in safe.
Updates happen by themselves
Lua checks for new versions and downloads them in the background. When one is ready it asks you to restart, and it never restarts in the middle of an export. You can also choose Check for Updates from the Lua menu.
See what changed in each version on the changelog.