Issue getting AntConc to work on Mac

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Juliet Solheim

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Mar 11, 2026, 10:20:39 PM (7 days ago) Mar 11
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I'm currently studying an MA module in Translation Technology and we're exploring term extraction and other concepts in AntConc.

However, I'm having an issue with getting it to work on my Mac (Tahoe 26.3.1). I've downloaded 4.3.1 for MacOS Silicon and I've followed all the remedial steps (check installation, char encoding etc) and I've tried multiple times, but I still get an operation failed error message. I have got it to work on my ancient Lenovo but it is painfully slow and also not without glitches so I was hoping you might have some words of advice for me. 

Many many thanks!

Laurence Anthony

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Mar 12, 2026, 11:19:49 PM (6 days ago) Mar 12
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Hi Juliet,

As I just wrote to another member of our community, I suspect this might be an issue with the new macOS (Tahoe) itself. It sounds like I need to recompile AntConc for this specific OS. As some background info on this, macOS is actually notoriously bad for backwards compatibility with their software. So, if I compile the software for Tahoe, there's no guarantee that it will run on earlier versions of the OS. So, the standard practice is to build the app for the *oldest* currently used OS, as forwards-compatibility is generally better. AntConc is compiled on Monterey for exactly this reason. Unfortunately, we sometimes get the case that a new macOS also breaks forward-compatibility! 

On top of that, we also have the Intel vs Silicon problem, where apps built for Silicon don't run on Intel computers and vice versa. One solution to this issue is to massively increase the size of the app and bundle what's called a "Universal" app that runs on both Intel and Silicon (but still doesn't address the forwards/backwards compatibility issue).

Let me work on this and try to get a solution ASAP. Luckily I'm just about ready to launch the official non-beta release of AntConc 4.4. So, it's a good time to check the whole compile process.

Laurence.

###############################################################
Laurence ANTHONY, Ph.D.
Professor of Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Science and Engineering
Waseda University
3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan
E-mail: antho...@gmail.com
WWW: http://www.laurenceanthony.net/
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Juliet Solheim

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Mar 14, 2026, 8:10:50 AM (4 days ago) Mar 14
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Hello Laurence

Many many thanks for your personal reply.

I'm looking forward to the new iteration!

Juliet

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