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Is there any way to add a Xamarin.Forms macOS project to a solution on Visual Studio on a PC? I already have a solution with projects for iOS etc. Can I add macOS to the solution?

I've found an answer here that seems to say that's impossible. But I think the answer's reasoning is wrong. Of course we'll need the Mac to build the app, but that's the case with iOS as well and it is possible to use it on a PC by connecting it to a Mac.

(And by the way, does anyone have any idea if macOS is production-ready?)

ispiro
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Microsoft's official documentation gives you the answer. Unfortunately, it's not possible to fully work on Visual Studio like you do with iOS projects:

Xamarin.Mac projects (macOS desktop apps) can be opened in Visual Studio and compiled to check for errors, but Mac applications cannot currently be built for distribution in Visual Studio.

Also, the release notes of Xamarin for Visual Studio 4.2 states the following:

Xamarin for Visual Studio has gained minimum support for Xamarin.Mac. This release enables Visual Studio to load and recognize Xamarin.Mac projects as supported. However, this minimum support allows only to build Xamarin.Mac projects without using the native Mac tool chain. The build process is performed locally on Windows, generating IL assemblies that cannot be used for running or debugging apps, and it doesn't create application bundles.

We're currently at the version 4.11 and there hasn't been any news since 4.2 about extended support for macOS projects. For now, you'll have to do with minimum support.

Timo Salomäki
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  • Thanks! What a pity, adding macOS to UWP, Android, and iOS Xamarin.Forms apps would really be nice. – ispiro Dec 06 '18 at 18:45
  • You're welcome! I'd also like to have proper support for macOS but hopefully it's in the pipeline for the next major version. – Timo Salomäki Dec 06 '18 at 18:47