Installing ElmapiCMS on macOS

This guide walks you through setting up ElmapiCMS v3 on macOS 12+ (Monterey and newer) using your CodeCanyon download.

We recommend Laravel Herd for macOS; it bundles PHP, Composer, and a zero-config local server tuned for Laravel.

Laravel Herd

Download the macOS installer from the Herd website.

After downloading the DMG, open it and drag Herd into Applications. Launch Herd to finish onboarding (it installs PHP and a background service).

Herd parks projects at ~/Herd. Each app is served on .test using its folder name.

Install ElmapiCMS

1. Open your CodeCanyon package and locate Elmapi3.zip.
2. Extract it (the folder named Elmapi3-main) and place it under ~/Herd.
3. Rename the folder to Elmapi3 so the app is available at http://elmapi3.test.
4. In Terminal:

cd ~/Herd/Elmapi3

Install PHP dependencies

composer install

This creates the vendor folder. If composer install fails, copy vendor.zip from your CodeCanyon download into the Elmapi3 folder, extract it, and try again.

The folder structure should look like this:

Copy environment and generate key

.env holds database settings, APP_KEY, and other options. Copy .env.example to .env:

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

Run database migrations and seed sample data

php artisan migrate --seed

When prompted to create a new SQLite database, type y and press Enter.

Note – If migrations fail, import elmapi3.sql from your CodeCanyon package with your database tool instead.

Visit the site

herd open

Open http://elmapi3.test.

Login

After seeding, sign in with:

Email:

[email protected]

Password:

password

Database

SQLite is used by default. To use MySQL/MariaDB, update .env. See the Laravel docs on database configuration.

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_DATABASE=elmapicms_v3
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

Npm packages

A production frontend build is already in public/build, so the CMS runs without npm install. For frontend development, run npm install.

Development

With npm dependencies installed, run composer run dev for the dev server.

Production

Run npm run build for a fresh production asset build.

Next step

• Create your first project