Install Joomla on a Mac - MAMP Joomla 1.5

Following on the newsletter from last week where we talked about developing locally and moving your site to a live server, this week we're going to walk you through installing Joomla locally, on a Mac.

We're going to use MAMP for this tutorial.

Here's how you do it:

Download and install MAMP to your Applications directory.
Download the latest Joomla 1.5 zip file.
Start MAMP by double clicking on the MAMP icon in your Applications/MAMP directory.
Once the servers have started, a browser window should open to the MAMP start page. If not, click on the 'Open start page' in the MAMP window.
Set up your database for Joomla by clicking on the phpMyAdmin link in the start page and inserting the name you wish to use for your database in the 'Create new database' field. **For all databases created in MAMP the default username / password is: root / root, and the Host Name that you will use when installing Joomla is: localhost.
Copy/move the downloaded version of Joomla 1.5 to your Applications/MAMP/htdocs directory and unzip the file. Leave a copy of this zip file in the htdocs directory for easy creation of multiple Joomla sites ... just unzip the file each time you wish to have a new Joomla installation!
Rename the unzipped folder to mysite (or whatever you wish).
In your broswer navigate to http://localhost:8888/mysite (or whatever name you gave your directory).
Run through the Joomla installation process and voila! (need help installing Joomla? See: http://help.joomla.org/content/category/48/268/302/)

You should now have a shiny new installation of Joomla on your Mac where you can develop your website securely in your local environment.

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Your Comments (17)

zillax22

August 17, 2010

very simple and clean tutorial - #8 though you forgot an 8 in http://localhost:8888/mysite

thanks though still worked for me but thought others might get confused

joomlanewbe

October 07, 2010

i seem to be getting an error on what the database name should be ...

Sean Callagy

October 17, 2010

Thanks for that - helped me a lot - much appreciated smilies/grin.gif

Laura

October 25, 2010

Thank you. This really helped me get up and running. smilies/kiss.gif

cdtropical

November 09, 2010

Thank You

I'm up and running

andy

November 20, 2010

this seems to be out of date.
when I am creating my database i am asked for a ftp root path on a ftp layer configuration.
there appear to be some steps missing here. can anyone help?
many thanks

Helvecio da Silva

November 23, 2010

Andy, if I'm not mistaken on this you mentioned you have an option of not using FTP layer at all.

Hanna

December 28, 2010

Help! How do I "Install MAMP" to my applications folder? There's no installer, just a bunch of folders with strange names on them.

Steve Burge

December 29, 2010

Hi Hanna

In this case "Install" means "move". Take the whole MAMP folder and move it to Applications.

Aimee

December 29, 2010

Hanna and Steve, the link is wrong. It downloads the components instead of the application. Hannah, go to www.mamp.info > Downloads to download.

Ria

January 10, 2010

Hi, I have followed these instructions and I am having trouble when I try to access the installation page. I have set up the database, and copied the joomla file into HTDocs in the MAMP file, it is unzipped and when I type the local host address into my browser it comes up with 'the requested URL was not found'.

I have been trying this for weeks and not getting anywhere further than this step! can you help?

So confused

January 16, 2010

What is it asking when it states, "enter Joomla! site" then for the email and admin password??? :-/

Brad

January 29, 2010

I have tried inputing the "http:///localhost:8888/mysite in both Safari and Firefox. Safari says:

Safari can’t open the page “http://localhost:8888/mysite”
because Safari can’t connect to the server “localhost”.

Firefox says:

Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at localhost:8888.

* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.

* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.

* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

I am pretty sure I have to change network setting somewhere, but not sure how or which one. Any help would be great!

Brad

January 29, 2010

Please disregard...I figured it out.

ty,

Mario

February 01, 2010

Hello Brad,

i have the same problem, cant get into the install routine. what have you done to resolve your problem?

Elvis

February 08, 2010

Hey
I installed XAMPP and it all worked out fine. Best thing to do is to find the folder where htpdocs is installed in your system. Create a folder named site and move all Joomla files into it. Remember to turn on your server, create your database, go to your browser and type http://localhost/name_of:the_f...files-are.
The installation process starts and it's very quick.

Lawrence

February 12, 2010

Nope, I did everything exactly as this and many other tutorials describe. I've tried Mamp and Xampp, Firefox and Safari. I have a strong connection, I have changed Firefox's settings regarding firewalls and disabled them. I even messed around with the proxy settings in system preferences, but still I get the same result:

"Index of/mysite"
with a choice between Parent Directory and administrator/

If I click on Parent Directory it just sends me to mysite, which loops me back to Parent directory and administrator/ .

When I click administrator/ I get the following message (using mamp):

"Not Found

The requested URL /mysite/installation/index.php was not found on this server.
Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) PHP/5.2.11 DAV/2 Server at localhost Port 8888"

What can I do??? Is it possible that the site has been busy for 2 days??