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darkonus's Diary

How to properly install JOSM on a Mac with Apple Silicon

Posted by darkonus on 4 December 2021 in English. Last updated on 20 April 2024.

  1. Install Java Development Kit for ARM 64 processors. JOSM developers now recommend Azul or Bellsoft Liberica JDK’s. At the moment, I’m using the Azul build: https://www.azul.com/downloads/?package=jdk#download-openjdk

  2. Download josm-tested.jar https://josm.openstreetmap.de/josm-tested.jar

  3. Drag and drop josm-tested.jar into the Dock

  4. Run JOSM!

JOSM

PS: Updated recommendations for JDK

UPD April 20, 2024: The instructions are effective; however, the JOSM development team now produces a build that supports both Intel and Apple Silicon processors. Currently, I download and install JOSM using Homebrew.

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Discussion

Comment from vorpalblade-kaart on 6 December 2021 at 15:01

Just a heads up, if you install any plugin which depends directly or indirectly on the JNA plugin, JOSM may freeze on startup. If this happens, you may need to either (a) delete the jna.jar file in ~/Library/JOSM/plugins and/or (b) edit the preferences.xml file in ~/Library/Preferences/JOSM and remove <entry value='jna'/> in the <list key='plugins'> xml block. You will get an error about the plugin jna missing. So you may want to remove all of the affected plugins from that same list. See the list at the bottom of this post.

See https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/21620 . Hopefully, an updated JNA plugin will be released in the next few days. Until then, if you do need any plugin which depends upon the JNA plugin, use any of the packages that are going to run using x64 emulation modes. This may affect other plugins that bundle JNA themselves, but they are going to have to update JNA individually.

This may affect the following plugins (each level indicates that the plugin(s) depend upon the upper level, and I’ve tried to indicate where each may cause a freeze):

  • apache-http
    • MicrosoftStreetside (may cause a freeze on downloading the Microsoft Streetside layer or attempting to view an image)
    • Mapillary (may cause a freeze on downloading the Mapillary layer and attempting to view an image)
    • TombPlugin
    • mapwithai (may cause the startup freeze – it tries to update data sources in the background on startup)
    • osmwiki-dataitem (may cause a freeze when it attempts to get data about the current key/tag, or uploading new key/tag data to OSM Data Items)
  • native_password_manager

P.S. JOSM recommends Azul or Bell Software Java distributions, preferably with OpenJFX (JavaFX) included. See https://josm.openstreetmap.de/browser/josm/trunk/README .

Comment from darkonus on 6 December 2021 at 15:08

vorpalblade-kaart, this is an important notice. Thank you!

Comment from vorpalblade-kaart on 6 December 2021 at 16:27

No problem.

We just released a new version of the JNA plugin, which should fix the issue. So people just need to update plugins prior to following your instructions.

Comment from Joel D Reid on 7 June 2022 at 16:41

If following the instructions above as I was, consider replacing step 1 with
brew install temurin

Temurin (previously AdoptOpenJDK), is an open project by the Eclipse Adoptium Working Group to provide a binary Java runtime, and is a great alternative to the proprietary Oracle JDK. You can also get the Temurin installer manually if you don’t use the brew package manager (which you should).

Comment from darkonus on 7 June 2022 at 17:12

Joel D Reid, thanks for the comment! It’s easier for me to use Homebrew too.

Comment from keepright! ler on 27 February 2024 at 17:10

A big thank you from me for helping me to get JOSM running with good performance on my iMac M1 (2021)!

Besides, more people are going to find this post now because I got here from my help topic in the OSM Community forum.

Comment from keepright! ler on 27 February 2024 at 18:05

One important thing though:

You should really consider replacing Oracle JDK with Temurin OpenJDK in your text (as Joel D Reid already wrote) because using the latest versions of Oracle JDK might be illegal according to Oracle’s No Fee Terms and Conditions licence†.

† British spelling in OSM context; I mostly prefer American even though I’m from Germany.

Comment from darkonus on 27 February 2024 at 18:07

Hi keepright! ler,

I’m so glad the instructions in my diary post helped you install JOSM and get it running well on your iMac M1.

I noticed that if you make the JOSM window smaller or reduce the display resolution, the performance improves even more. But these are compromises that may not suit everyone.

Comment from darkonus on 27 February 2024 at 18:19

and thanks for your comments, I wrote in the text of the JDKs that were recommended by the JOSM developers

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