macOS installation

Before you install Neo4j on macOS, check System Requirements to see if your setup is suitable. If it is not already installed, get OpenJDK 21 or ZuluJDK 21.

Install and start Neo4j

You can install Neo4j on macOS either by downloading and extracting a TAR archive or by using the Homebrew package manager.

Install Neo4j using a tar archive

  1. Download the Linux/Mac Executable 2025.09.0 (TAR) release from Neo4j Deployment Center.

  2. Extract the contents of the archive, using tar -xf <filename> or by double-clicking the file.

  3. Place the extracted files in a permanent home on your server and set the environment variable NEO4J_HOME to point to the extracted directory, for example, export NEO4J_HOME=/path/to/_<NEO4J_HOME> to make it easier to refer to it later.

  4. (Recommended) Change the default locations of the data, conf, certificates, licenses, and plugins (if you plan to use custom plugins) directories by setting the environment variable NEO4J_CONF and the respective server.directories.* settings to point to the desired locations.

    Storing your Neo4j files outside NEO4J_HOME will simplify the upgrade process later because you will be able to replace the DBMS binaries without affecting the configuration and state. Otherwise, these Neo4j files will remain in the old installation folder and may be accidentally overwritten during an upgrade or deleted during a subsequent uninstall.

  5. Enterprise Edition Accept either the commercial or the evaluation license agreement. If you are using Community Edition, you can skip this step.

    • Use one of the following options to accept the commercial license agreement. See the Neo4j licensing page for details on the available agreements.

      • Set the environment variable NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT=yes.

      • Run $NEO4J_HOME/bin/neo4j-admin server license --accept-commercial

    • Use one of the following options to accept the Neo4j Evaluation Agreement for Neo4j Software:

      • Set the environment variable NEO4J_ACCEPT_LICENSE_AGREEMENT=eval.

      • Run $NEO4J_HOME/bin/neo4j-admin server license --accept-evaluation.

  6. Before starting up the database for the first time, it is recommended to use the set-initial-password command of neo4j-admin to define the password for the native user neo4j.

    If the password is not set explicitly using this method, it will be set to the default password neo4j. In that case, you will be prompted to change the default password at first login.
    For more information, see Set an initial password.

  7. Start Neo4j:

    • To run Neo4j as a console application, use: $NEO4J_HOME/bin/neo4j console.

    • To run Neo4j in a background process, use: $NEO4J_HOME/bin/neo4j start.

Install Neo4j as a macOS service

The easiest way to install Neo4j as a service on macOS is to use the Homebrew package manager (see Homebrew installation instructions).

  1. Install Neo4j using Homebrew:

    brew install neo4j

    This command installs Neo4j Community Edition and sets it up as a service that can be managed using Homebrew.

  2. (Recommended) If you want to change the default directories or other settings, you can do so in the neo4j.conf file located at /opt/homebrew/Cellar/neo4j/2025.09.0/libexec/conf/neo4j.conf. If already started, changes to the configuration file will not take effect until you restart the Neo4j service using brew services restart neo4j.

  3. Start Neo4j as a macOS service:

    brew services start neo4j

    This command starts the Neo4j service and sets it to launch automatically at system startup.

  4. To check the status of the Neo4j service, use:

    brew services list

Alternatively, if you want to install Neo4j Enterprise or prefer native service control, you can use the standard macOS system tools, such as launchd, to create a service based on the neo4j command.

Access Neo4j

By default, Neo4j Community Edition does not include graph tools such as visualization, data exploration, and monitoring. However, you can use the Neo4j Aura console to access these features for free. No subscription is required.

  1. Sign up or log in to the Aura Console.

  2. On the Instances page, click the Self-managed tab and then + Add deployment button.

  3. Select URL Connection.

  4. Provide a Name and Connection URL. If you have installed Neo4j locally on your system, you can connect to http://localhost:7474.

  5. Click the Connect dropdown to launch various graph tools such as Query, Explore, and Dashboards.

  6. Type the username neo4j and your password or the default password neo4j. You will be prompted to change the latter upon first login.

    Aura add self-managed deployment

You are now connected and can use the Aura Console to run Cypher queries, visualize graphs, and optionally monitor your local Neo4j database in Neo4j Aura. For details, see Get started with Neo4j.

Alternatively, you can use the Neo4j Browser, a web-based user interface for interacting with Neo4j that is included with the Neo4j installation. To access the Neo4j Browser, open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:7474. Connect using the username neo4j with your password or the default password neo4j. If the default password is used, you will be prompted to change it upon first login.

Logging

Neo4j logs are written to the logs directory under NEO4J_HOME. For detailed information about the log files, see Logging.

When Neo4j runs in console mode, logs are printed to the terminal.

macOS file descriptor limits

The limit of open file descriptors may have to be increased if a database has many indexes or if there are many connections to the database. The currently configured open file descriptor limitation on your macOS system can be inspected with the launchctl limit maxfiles command. The method for changing the limit may differ depending on the version of macOS. Consult the documentation for your operating system in order to find out the appropriate command.

If you raise the limit above 10240, then you must also add the following setting to your neo4j.conf file:

server.jvm.additional=-XX:-MaxFDLimit

Without this setting, the file descriptor limit for the JVM will not be increased beyond 10240. Note, however, that this only applies to macOS. On all other operating systems, you should always leave the MaxFDLimit JVM setting enabled.

Uninstall Neo4j

Here are the steps to uninstall Neo4j on macOS:

  1. (Optional) Create a backup to avoid losing your data.

  2. Stop all Neo4j running services:

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sudo systemctl stop neo4j
sudo systemctl disable neo4j
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  3. Delete NEO4J_HOME and the file /lib/systemd/system/neo4j.service:

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rm /lib/systemd/system/neo4j.service
rm -rf NEO4J_HOME
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