HGKeeper

---

title: Install

date: 2019-01-16T20:14:59.000Z

replaces:

- pidgin.im/download/

- pidgin.im/download/windows/

- pidgin.im/download/linux/

- pidgin.im/download/mac/

- pidgin.im/download/source/

lastmod: 2020-01-14T05:00:21.000Z

weight: 10

aliases:

- download/

- download/windows/

- download/linux/

- download/mac/

- download/source/

---

# Pidgin

## Windows

This version of Pidgin downloads an appropriate version of GTK. GTK is now

installed locally for Pidgin, and not system-wide, thus Pidgin will not

interfere with other GTK apps on your system.

If you would like to have GTK included in the installer, we have an [offline

installer]({{% sourceforge-download "-offline.exe" %}})

that bundles everything except spell-checking dictionaries.

If you're looking for a portable version that doesn't need installation, [we

also have that available]({{% sourceforge-download "-win32-bin.zip" %}}).

## Linux

We do not provide pre-built packages for Linux and Unix distributions. We

recommend installing Pidgin using your operating system's standard package

management tool.

If your operating system doesn't provide a pre-built package, or if their

pre-built package is out of date and you want to upgrade, then you can try

[building from source](/development/building/).

### Debian/Ubuntu

```bash

sudo apt update

sudo apt install pidgin

```

## FreeBSD

```

pkg install pidgin

```

## macOS

For a native Mac OS X experience we recommend [Adium](https://adium.im/), which

uses libpurple (the core of Pidgin) for much of its protocol support.

If you're sure you want to use Pidgin on OS X, you may find the packages

provided through [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/),

[pkgin](https://pkgsrc.joyent.com/),

[Fink](https://finkproject.org/download/) or

[Macports](https://www.macports.org/install.php) more convenient than compiling

from source. Please note, *we do not provide support for issues related to

installing Homebrew, pkgin, Fink, Macports, or their packages of Pidgin*. Contact those

projects directly with questions or concerns.

If you're sure you want to use Pidgin on OS X and you don't want to use

Homebrew, Fink or Macports, you can [download the Pidgin

source](#source) and compile.

## Source

This download is for the source code of Pidgin {{< current-version >}}.

If you want to **use** Pidgin, you should either download and use our Windows

installer or look for pre-built packages from your operating system

distribution.

If you are looking to **modify** Pidgin, you may want to look at our

[instructions for checking out the code from our

repository](https://pidgin.im/development/contributing/mercurial/).

# Finch

Finch is a text-based IM client written in C which uses the ncurses toolkit.