Step-by-step instructions to build Emacs for Windows 64 bit with MSYS2 and MinGW-w64. Now `native-comp` supported.

Build Emacs for Windows 64bit with Native Compilation.md

Build Emacs-w64 with MSYS2/MinGW-w64 with Native Compilation

Instructions are modified from emacs-w64 Wiki page by zklhp. Many thanks for sharing!

1. Download the latest MSYS2 from this download page.

2. Install MSYS2 to, for example, C:\msys2 (make sure no space in path to avoid unwanted problems).

3. Optionally prettify the MSYS2 console mintty with ~/.minttyrc to make it more pleasing to eyes. Thanks to this awesome theme!

ForegroundColour=131,148,150
BackgroundColour=0,43,54
CursorColour=192,192,192
Black=7,54,66
BoldBlack=0,43,54
Red=220,50,47
BoldRed=203,75,22
Green=133,153,0
BoldGreen=88,110,117
Yellow=181,137,0
BoldYellow=101,123,131
Blue=38,139,210
BoldBlue=131,148,150
Magenta=211,54,130
BoldMagenta=108,113,196
Cyan=42,161,152
BoldCyan=147,161,161
White=238,232,213
BoldWhite=253,246,227
BoldAsFont=yes
Font=Consolas
FontHeight=12
Transparency=off
OpaqueWhenFocused=no
ScrollbackLines=200000
FontSmoothing=full
CursorType=underscore
CursorBlinks=yes
ScrollMod=off
RightClickAction=paste
ClickTargetMod=off

4. Remove all /c/* paths in $PATH by adding this to .bashrc and restart mintty.

This is important to avoid interference from programs installed on the same machine, especially if you have Cygwin installed.

# Remove '/c/*' from PATH if running under Msys to avoid possible 
# interference from programs already installed on system. Removal 
# with awk is copied from http://stackoverflow.com/a/370192.
if [ $(uname -o) == 'Msys' ]; then
    export PATH=`echo ${PATH} | awk -v RS=: -v ORS=: '/c\// {next} {print}' | sed 's/:*$//'`
fi

The whole .bashrc is copied here.

# .bashrc
 
# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
    . /etc/bashrc
fi
 
##############
### Basics ###
##############
 
# Don't wait for job termination notification
set -o notify
 
# Enables UTF-8 in Putty.
# See http://www.earth.li/~huggie/blog/tech/mobile/putty-utf-8-trick.html
echo -ne '\e%G\e[?47h\e%G\e[?47l'
 
# My pretty prompt (Yay!)
PS1='\[\e[32;40m\]\u\[\e[0m\]\[\e[34;40m\]\H\[\e[0m\]\[\e[40;1m\]\w\[\e[0m\] '
 
############
### PATH ###
############
 
# Remove '/c/*' from PATH if running under Msys to avoid possible 
# interference from programs already installed on system. Removal 
# with awk is copied from http://stackoverflow.com/a/370192.
if [ $(uname -o) == 'Msys' ]; then
    export PATH=`echo ${PATH} | awk -v RS=: -v ORS=: '/c\// {next} {print}' | sed 's/:*$//'`
fi
 
###############
### Aliases ###
###############
 
 
alias less='less -r'
alias rm='rm -i'
alias whence='type -a'
alias ls='ls -F --color=auto'
alias dir='ls --color=auto --format=long -L'
alias vdir='ls --color=auto --format=long'
alias ll='ls -l'
alias la='ls -A'
alias l='ls -CF'
alias md='mkdir'
alias pico='nano'
alias cls='clear'

5. Install packages required to build Emacs.

Follow instructions on this page first.

pacman -Syu
pacman -Sy
pacman -Sy\
    --needed \
    filesystem \
    msys2-runtime \
    bash \
    libreadline \
    libiconv \
    libarchive \
    libgpgme \
    libcurl \
    pacman \
    ncurses \
    libintl
    

Close mintty and restart it, do this again.

pacman -Su

Then let us install all required libs for building Emacs.

pacman -Su \
    autoconf \
    autogen \
    automake \
    automake-wrapper \
    diffutils \
    git \
    guile \
    libgc \
    libguile \
    libidn-devel \
    libltdl \
    libnettle-devel \
    libopenssl \
    libp11-kit-devel \
    libtasn1-devel \
    libunistring \
    make \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-binutils \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-bzip2 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-cairo \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-crt-git \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-dbus \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-expat \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-fontconfig \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-freetype \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc-libs \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-gdk-pixbuf2 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-gettext \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-giflib \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-glib2 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-gmp \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-gnutls \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-harfbuzz \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-headers-git \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-imagemagick \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-isl \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-jansson \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libffi \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libgccjit \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libiconv \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libidn2 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libjpeg-turbo \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libpng \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-librsvg \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libsystre \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libtasn1 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libtiff \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libunistring \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libwinpthread-git \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-libxml2 \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-mpc \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-mpfr \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-nettle \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-p11-kit \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-pango \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-pixman \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-winpthreads \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-xpm-nox \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-xz \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib \
    mingw-w64-x86_64-jbigkit \
    nano \
    openssl \
    pkgconf \
    tar \
    texinfo \
    wget
      

6. Get emacs source.

mkdir emacs; cd emacs
git clone http://git.savannah.gnu.org/r/emacs.git emacs
git config core.autocrlf false

7. Build Emacs!

Change target accordingly, the directory in which the freshly built Emacs binaries, libraries, and docs live.

target=/c/emacs

export PATH=/mingw64/bin:$PATH
 
mkdir build; cd build

(cd ../emacs; ./autogen.sh)

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw64/lib/pkgconfig

../emacs/configure \
    --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32 \
    --target=x86_64-w64-mingw32 \
    --build=x86_64-w64-mingw32 \
    --with-native-compilation \
    --with-gnutls \
    --with-imagemagick \
    --with-jpeg \
    --with-json \
    --with-png \
    --with-rsvg \
    --with-tiff \
    --with-wide-int \
    --with-xft \
    --with-xml2 \
    --with-xpm \
    'CFLAGS=-I/mingw64/include/noX' \
    prefix=$target
 
make
 
make install prefix=$target

# Only needed for standalone dist (wo MSYS2 env)
# cp /mingw64/bin/*.dll $target/bin

Awesome - glad it worked out for you! 👍

I'm now getting this error upon running my config (instead of with -Q)

 »  Error (use-package): auto-compile/:config: Native compiler error: (lambda (arg0 &optional arg1 arg2 arg3 arg4) (let ((f #'load)) (funcall f arg0 arg1 arg2 arg3 arg4))), "Compiling c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/eln-cache/29.0.60-49a1868c/subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0.eln...
ld: cannot find dllcrt2.o: No such file or directory
ld: cannot find crtbegin.o: No such file or directory
ld: cannot find -lmingw32
ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
ld: cannot find -lgcc
ld: cannot find -lmoldname
ld: cannot find -lmingwex
ld: cannot find -lmsvcrt
ld: cannot find -lkernel32
ld: cannot find -lpthread
ld: cannot find -ladvapi32
ld: cannot find -lshell32
ld: cannot find -luser32
ld: cannot find -lkernel32
ld: cannot find -lmingw32
ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
ld: cannot find -lgcc
ld: cannot find -lmoldname
ld: cannot find -lmingwex
ld: cannot find -lmsvcrt
ld: cannot find -lkernel32
ld: cannot find crtend.o: No such file or directory

Error: native-ice (\"failed to compile\" \"c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/eln-cache/29.0.60-49a1868c/subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0.eln\" \"error invoking gcc driver\")
  debug-early-backtrace()
  debug-early(error (native-ice \"failed to compile\" \"c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/eln-cache/29.0.60-49a1868c/subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0.eln\" \"error invoking gcc driver\"))
  comp--compile-ctxt-to-file(\"c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/eln-cache/29.0.60-49a1868c/subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0.eln\")
  comp-compile-ctxt-to-file(\"c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/eln-cache/29.0.60-49a1868c/subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0.eln\")
  comp-final1()
  load-with-code-conversion(\"c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Local/Temp/emacs-int-comp-subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0-BXbNTa.el\" \"c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Local/Temp/emacs-int-comp-subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0-BXbNTa.el\" nil t)
  command-line-1((\"-l\" \"c:/Users/MRTINY~2/AppData/Local/Temp/emacs-int-comp-subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0-BXbNTa.el\"))
  command-line()
  normal-top-level()
c:\\Emacs\\built\\bin\\libgccjit-0.dll: error: error invoking gcc driver
Internal native compiler error: \"failed to compile\", \"c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/eln-cache/29.0.60-49a1868c/subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0.eln\", \"error invoking gcc driver\"
"

The above error message only occurs the first ever time Emacs runs after being compiled. Subsequent runs error with:

Error (use-package): auto-compile/:config: Native elisp load failed: "c:/Users/MrTinyToes/AppData/Roaming/.emacs.d/eln-cache/29.0.60-49a1868c/subr--trampoline-6c6f6164_load_0.eln", "%1 is not a valid Win32 application."

I get these errors everytime something tries to native compile (which is often when opening new buffers and new code gets run). UGHGHGIH. I'm happy it works but it's just about the most annoying possible way of "working" possible where I constantly get bombarded with error popups non-stop as well as native compilation just not working at all

While some things continue to work, others do not. magit is completely broken and, as such, so is this build of Emacs. Once again thwarted by my curse, I guess.

cl-generic-ensure-function: transient--init-suffix-key is already defined as something else than a generic function

That error appears every time I try to run any magit command. Building software in the modern world sucks

I had to do run the below command before execute ./autogen.sh
sed -i $'s/\r$//' "configure.ac"

need installing mingw-w64-x86_64-tree-sitter for tree-sitter , and sqlite3 for sqlite support on emacs 29

Hi, thanks for this guide!
make install can't find libgccjit, even though I've installed and reinstalled it - everything else up to that point worked smoothly though...
Any ideas?

checking for harfbuzz >= 1.2.3... yes
checking for X11/xpm.h... yes
checking for jpeglib 6b or later... no
checking for lcms2... yes
checking for library containing inflateEnd... -lz
checking for dladdr... no
checking for dlfunc... no
checking for gcc_jit_context_acquire in -lgccjit... no
configure: error: ELisp native compiler was requested, but libgccjit was not found.
Please try installing libgccjit or a similar package.
If you are sure you want Emacs be compiled without ELisp native compiler,
pass the --without-native-compilation option to configure.
make: *** [Makefile:573: config.status] Error 1

$ pacman -Su     mingw-w64-x86_64-libgccjit
warning: mingw-w64-x86_64-libgccjit-13.1.0-7 is up to date -- reinstalling
:: Starting core system upgrade...
 there is nothing to do
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) mingw-w64-x86_64-libgccjit-13.1.0-7

Total Installed Size:  52.89 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:       0.00 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
(1/1) checking keys in keyring                               [###############################] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity                             [###############################] 100%
(1/1) loading package files                                  [###############################] 100%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts                            [###############################] 100%
(1/1) checking available disk space                          [###############################] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) reinstalling mingw-w64-x86_64-libgccjit                [###############################] 100%

Quite odd. Did you do make first, then make install?

actually, now I look back and I see make failed for the same reason - I could have sworn I saw it succeed!

Start with a fresh git clone and try again? Which branch are you on?

I didn't make any changes to the code, I'm on the emacs-29 branch

I just checked out a clean repo, and running make I get a lot of these messages:

CC time_rz.o
cc1.exe: warning: C:/msys64/mingw64/include/noX: No such file or directory [-Wmissing-include-dirs]

and also some other warnings like:

]
  430 |     XIL ((EMACS_INT) (((EMACS_UINT) (n) << INTTYPEBITS) + Lisp_Int0))
      |                        ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
../../emacs/src/lisp.h:1212:10: note: in expansion of macro 'lisp_h_make_fixnum_wrap'
 1212 |   return lisp_h_make_fixnum_wrap (n);
      |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
../../emacs/src/frame.c: In function 'Fx_parse_geometry':
../../emacs/src/frame.c:5641:23: note: 'height' was declared here
 5641 |   unsigned int width, height;

is that normal?

I do have:

ls /mingw64/bin |grep xpm
cxpm-noX.exe

and

 echo $PATH
/mingw64/bin:/ucrt64/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/c/Windows/System32:/c/Windows:/c/Windows/System32/Wbem:/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl:/c/msys64/mingw64/bin/

I've removed the CFLGAS including nox, and I notice that already here I get a lot of

checking for WebPGetInfo... no
checking for libwebpdemux >= 0.6.0 libwebpdecoder >= 0.6.0... no
checking for sqlite3_open_v2 in -lsqlite3... no
checking for getaddrinfo_a in -lanl... no
checking for malloc_trim... no
checking for dbus-1 >= 1.0... no
checking for lgetfilecon in -lselinux... no
checking for gnutls >= 2.12.2... no
checking for libsystemd >= 222... no
checking for jansson >= 2.7... no
checking for tree-sitter >= 0.20.2... no
checking for tree-sitter >= 0.6.3... no
checking for windows.h... yes
checking for harfbuzz >= 1.2.3... no
checking for X11/xpm.h... no
checking for jpeglib 6b or later... no
checking for lcms2... no
checking for library containing inflateEnd... -lz
checking for dladdr... no
checking for dlfunc... no
checking for gcc_jit_context_acquire in -lgccjit... no

at least some of which were installed in previous steps.. any idea why the compiler will not pick up on them? the PATH var I posted looks alright?

where does configure look for these packages? I looked around and it looks like it's using test but I really don't know much about makefiles etc.

Hi. Thanks for posting this. I'm very much a newbie so this is super helpful. However, the link to SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/p/msys2/wiki/MSYS2%20installation/) is dead for me.

Hi. Thanks for posting this. I'm very much a newbie so this is super helpful. However, the link to SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/p/msys2/wiki/MSYS2%20installation/) is dead for me.

Please ignore the sf link and just follow the steps below. I was trying to give due credits to the authors of that page.

Thanks!

thanks! consider using make -j$(nproc).

Hello, thanks for this guide.
For me it worked but only until I closed the shell. Meaning I performed the steps above in an MSYS2 UCRT64 shell and after make install is finished I could run emacs/bin/emacs and the GUI is visible. Closed the MSYS2 UCRT64 shell. Reopened it and there is no response in the shell (no warnings no errors). When trying to run emacs.exe or runemacs.exe from the windows file explorer I get the messages for missing .dll : libgmp-10.dll, libMagickCore-7.Q16HDRI-10.dll, libMagickWand-7.Q16HDRI-10.dll, libdbus-1-3.dll .

Any Idea why those .dll files were accessbile before but not after the shell restart?

Update:
export PATH=/mingw64/bin:$PATH is missing.
I misunderstood the ,bashrc . Found one in C:\msys2\etc\skel and edited it, but with no effect. Apparently there needs to be a .bashrc and a .bash_profile (just calling .bashrc in this case) in the home directory. --> tested and working.

For those who want to build Emacs 29 in MSys2 so you can use it in terminal by emacs -nw, this works as long as you use the GNU Emacs tarball. That being said, don't choose emacs-29-deps-mingw-w64-src.zip to build from, unless you wanna the GUI version in Windows.

Hello, thanks for this guide. For me it worked but only until I closed the shell. Meaning I performed the steps above in an MSYS2 UCRT64 shell and after make install is finished I could run emacs/bin/emacs and the GUI is visible. Closed the MSYS2 UCRT64 shell. Reopened it and there is no response in the shell (no warnings no errors). When trying to run emacs.exe or runemacs.exe from the windows file explorer I get the messages for missing .dll : libgmp-10.dll, libMagickCore-7.Q16HDRI-10.dll, libMagickWand-7.Q16HDRI-10.dll, libdbus-1-3.dll .

Any Idea why those .dll files were accessbile before but not after the shell restart?

Update: export PATH=/mingw64/bin:$PATH is missing. I misunderstood the ,bashrc . Found one in C:\msys2\etc\skel and edited it, but with no effect. Apparently there needs to be a .bashrc and a .bash_profile (just calling .bashrc in this case) in the home directory. --> tested and working.

Hey @HarryTheFairy ,
Can you please elaborate on the last bit, how did you run it on windows? The .bashrc you mentioned is a part of the minnty shell, I guess.
However, double clicking the emacs/runemacs.exe still shows .dll error, and it also doesn't show up in the start menu.
Do you have any clue?

@cosmologistPiyush I think I only ran it only from my ucrt64.exe shell that came with msys2. I have not tried setting a shortcut in the start menu.

• I followed the guide above.
• Note: I skipped the minnty part and I do not see a ~/.minntyrc
• After I was done and typed $ emacs in my ucrt64.exe shell doom emacs started as expected
• closed the shell and reopened it --> $ emacs --> missing .dll errors
• added .bash_profile and .bashrc to my HOME directory
• added to .bashrc: export PATH=/mingw64/bin:$PATH
• reopened a ucrt64 shell --> $ emacs --> doom emacs started as expected
  So the /mingw64/bin folder needs to be visible in the environment path for emacs to start.
  I do not know how to start this version in another way like a shortcut.

In the beginning I thought building emacs like this is necessary to have native compilation active. But currently i have installed emacs 29.3 via the windows installer and setup doom emacs through another guide and it runs well, also native compilation seems to be active. There I can start it from the start menu shorcut that came with the installer.
Currently not using msys2 anymore, maybe trying it again if I learn that the performance is significantly better that way.

Hey @HarryTheFairy

@cosmologistPiyush I think I only ran it only from my ucrt64.exe shell that came with msys2. I have not tried setting a shortcut in the start menu.

• I followed the guide above.
• Note: I skipped the minnty part and I do not see a ~/.minntyrc
• After I was done and typed $ emacs in my ucrt64.exe shell doom emacs started as expected
• closed the shell and reopened it --> $ emacs --> missing .dll errors
• added .bash_profile and .bashrc to my HOME directory

When you say HOME I am assuming its the urcrt64 shell home dir, as Windows I don't think has a .bashrc?

• added to .bashrc: export PATH=/mingw64/bin:$PATH
• reopened a ucrt64 shell --> $ emacs --> doom emacs started as expected
  So the /mingw64/bin folder needs to be visible in the environment path for emacs to start.
  I do not know how to start this version in another way like a shortcut.

In the beginning I thought building emacs like this is necessary to have native compilation active. But currently i have installed emacs 29.3 via the windows installer and setup doom emacs through another guide and it runs well, also native compilation seems to be active. There I can start it from the start menu shorcut that came with the installer. Currently not using msys2 anymore, maybe trying it again if I learn that the performance is significantly better that way.

In my case the make install fails, as a reason I probably don't get the Start menu options. :(
Thanks for elaborating though.

Also a FYI for people doing this, MINGW GCC 14.1 and 14.2 have missing waitpid headers, so try -Wno-error=implicit-function-declaration, otherwise you can downgrade, or wait for the update to be fixed.