Installing SPSS on a Mac - Troubleshooting

Owned by Shawn Richter
Feb 24, 2021
2 min read

Due to a conflict with the Mac Operating System and the SPSS installer, some Mac computers may have difficulty installing SPSS. These instructions are meant as work around to allow SPSS to be installed and are only needed if installation is unable to be completed.

Note: Do to liability reasons we are unable to physically work on student computers but we can provide these instructions for how to successfully install SPSS on your Mac.

Required: 1 Flash Drive (above 8GB recommended) and SPSS installer.

  • Plug Flash drive into Mac

    • Drag SPSS installer onto flash drive

  • Open up the Terminal Application

    • Hold Command and tap spacebar and type Terminal into search bar that pops up and tap return

  • In Terminal input the following command:

    • Xattr –cr

    • After typing the above command, make sure to not hit enter yet. After the “ -cr” Make sure you hit the space bar

    • Click and drag the SPSS installer from the USB and put it in the terminal right next to the “ -cr”.

      • You will see a long string of text once it is there you may hit enter

        • After this you will see a long series of commands, once they are done try to open the installer from the USB flash drive

    • If this installer still will not run, follow the above steps again only this time installed of typing “xattr -cr” try this one

      • Chmod –r 777

        • Enter a space after the 777 and then drag the installer from the USB. Hit enter and see if you can run the installer without issue.

If you still have issues installing the software. Please give us a call so that we can further troubleshoot.

Thank you,
Helpdesk