.NET MAUI Tutorial | Your first multi-platform app in C#

Introduction

Purpose

Set up your development environment and build your first .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) app.

Prerequisites

The minimum requirements for the latest version of Xcode.

Time to Complete

10 minutes + download/installation time

Scenario

A mobile and desktop app that runs on Mac and iOS that displays a Hello, World! message.

Download and install

Download and install the .NET SDK:

Download .NET 8 SDK x64 (Intel)
Download .NET 8 SDK Arm64 (Apple Silicon)

If you're on a Mac with an Apple M1 or M2 chip, you need to install the Arm64 version of the SDK.
Download and install VS Code:

Download VS Code
Open VS Code and select the Extensions button in VS Code's Activity Bar to the left. Type MAUI in the search bar, select .NET MAUI, and then select the Install button on the .NET MAUI extension page.

This extension comes with the C# Dev Kit and the C# extensions, which are required for the .NET MAUI extension to run.
Open a new terminal and install the .NET MAUI workload by running the following command:
Terminal
```
sudo dotnet workload install maui
```
If the installation succeeded, you should see an output similar to the following:
Terminal
```
Succesfully installed workload maui
```

Check everything installed correctly

Once you've set up your environment, open a new VS Code terminal. In the toolbar, select Terminal, then New Terminal.

In your terminal, run the following command to check your installation.

Terminal

dotnet

If the installation succeeded, you should see an output similar to the following:

Terminal

Usage: dotnet [options]
Usage: dotnet [path-to-application]

Options:
-h|--help         Display help.
--info            Display .NET information.
--list-sdks       Display the installed SDKs.
--list-runtimes   Display the installed runtimes.

path-to-application:
The path to an application .dll file to execute.

Got an error?

If you receive a 'dotnet' is not recognized as an internal or external command error, make sure you opened a new VS Code terminal. If restarting VS Code or restarting your machine doesn't resolve the issue, use the I ran into an issue button at the bottom of the page to get help fixing the problem.

Install Xcode

To build .NET MAUI apps, you'll also need:

Latest version of Xcode
An Apple ID

If you don't already have an Apple ID, you can create a new one at https://appleid.apple.com. An Apple ID is required for installing and signing into Xcode.
After installing Xcode, you must open Xcode and agree to the license agreements and install optional components, if prompted.
When asked what platforms you'd like to develop for, select platforms macOS and iOS and then select Download & Install.
Open a new terminal and install the Xcode command line developer tools by running the following command:
Terminal
```
xcode-select --install
```
When prompted to install Xcode command line developer tools, select Install. Lastly, agree to the license agreement.

If everything looks good, select the Continue button below to go to the next step.

Create your app

Create a new .NET MAUI app:

Open the command palette in VS Code by pressing CMD+SHIFT+P.
Type .NET: to see the commands you can run with C# Dev Kit!
Find and select .NET: New Project to create a new .NET project.
Select .NET MAUI App.
Choose the folder location you'd like to save your project.
Name the project MyFirstMauiApp in the command palette when prompted.

If you have a Visual Studio Subscription, sign into your account. If you don't see a prompt pop up, click on the C# icon in VS Code's Status Bar towards the bottom right of your window.

In VS Code's Side Bar, make sure the Explorer is open. Here you should see a folder and the Solution Explorer. If you've opened a new instance of VS Code, the Solution Explorer may be near the bottom of the sidebar.

Under the Solution Explorer, select MainPage.xaml. This file contains the markup that describes the structure and layout of the user interface elements in your MAUI application.

Run your app

This tutorial will focus on deploying a .NET MAUI application to your local Mac machine first. Later, you'll have the option to run on an iOS simulator.

In the bottom right of the VS Code window, you should see curly braces in the Status Bar. Click on the curly braces, and you should see My Mac selected as the default debug target.

If you don't see anything selected, click on Debug Target and select My Mac from the list. Please note, it may not be the first item in your list upon the first time selecting a debug target.

To run the app, click the Run and Debug icon in the VS Code Activity Bar. Then click Run and Debug.

In the running app, select the Click me button a few times and observe that the count of the number of button clicks is incremented:

Congratulations, you've built and run your first .NET MAUI app! Keep the app running and continue the tutorial.

Edit your code

Go back to the MainPage.xaml file in VS Code and leave the app running.

Currently, the Text of the second Label on line 17 is set to say Hello, World! as shown in the following code:

MainPage.xaml

<Label
    Text="Hello, World!" 
    Style="{StaticResource Headline}"
    SemanticProperties.HeadingLevel="Level1"  />

Update the text to read Hello, .NET MAUI!:

MainPage.xaml

<Label
    Text="Hello, .NET MAUI!" 
    Style="{StaticResource Headline}"
    SemanticProperties.HeadingLevel="Level1"  />

The app UI updates automatically as you make changes.

Run on mobile device

You can decide to deploy to one or more of the platforms based on your development environment. You just ran and deployed your app to Windows. Now, let's set up an Android device or emulator.

Activate Hyper-V

In your Windows Search Bar, type Windows features and select Turn Windows features on or off.

Make sure the Hyper-V box is checked and select Ok.

You'll need to reboot your machine at this time for the change to take effect.

Android SDK Install

Open Visual Studio and your MyFirstMauiApp solution. From the debug target drop-down menu, select net8.0-android under Framework.

Specific versions of the Android SDK are required to build projects. If you haven't accepted the Android SDK license, you'll see the following error message on the Error List window.

Double click the message to start the license acceptance process. Click Accept for each of the licenses present and the automatic installation will begin.

Set up Android emulator

If you don't have an Android device to deploy to, you can follow these steps to set up an Android emulator. If you've already done this or want to use your own Android device, you can skip this step.

If this is your first time building a .NET MAUI application, you'll see Android Emulator selected in the debug target drop-down menu. Click it to start the creation process. If a license acceptence dialog shows up, select Accept.

This brings up the New Device window. Select the Create button to create an emulator with default settings. This will download the emulator images and finalize the creation of the emulator for use in Visual Studio. This step might take a while.

Don't worry if the API Level you see is different from the images. It may be 33 or higher.

Once the emulator has been created, you'll see a button that says Start. Click it.

You may receive prompt to enable Windows Hypervisor Platform. Follow the documentation to enable acceleration to improve performance (required to get the emulator up and running). Select Run Anyway.

The Android emulator will launch and will be fully finished when you see the ability to Stop in the Android Device Manager. This may take some time.

Once it's fully finished, you'll see it displayed in the Visual Studio debug menu.

Your Android emulator has now been created and is ready to use. Next time you run Visual Studio, the emulator will appear directly in the debug target window and will start when you select it. If you ran into any issues or have performance issues with the emulator, read through the full setup documentation.

Set up Android device

To develop with your Android device, USB debugging needs to be enabled. Follow these steps on the device to connect it to Visual Studio. If you don't have an Android device, you can skip this section.

Enable developer mode

Go to the Settings screen.
Find Build number by using search at the top of the settings screen, or locate it in About phone.
Tap Build number 7-10 times until "You are now a developer!" pops up.

Check USB debugging status

Go to the Settings screen.
Find USB debugging by using search at the top of the settings screen, or locate it in Developer options.
Enable USB debugging if it isn't enabled already.

Trust device

Plug your device into your computer.
You'll be prompted to Allow USB debugging.
Check Always allow from this computer.
Click Allow.

Your device is now configured and will show up in Visual Studio as a deployment target.

Having issues? Check the documentation.

Your emulator or device should now be configured for deployment!

Run on Android

Make sure your device or emulator is selected as a debug target.

From the menu, select Debug > Start Debugging (or press F5). If this option is disabled, ensure an emulator or device is selected.

Your application will build, deploy to the Android device/emulator selected, and run.

You can deploy to one or more of the platforms based on your development environment. You just ran and deployed your app to macOS. Now, let's deploy to iOS.

Close the .NET MAUI application you had running and return to VS Code.

Click on the curly braces in the bottom right of the VS Code window in the Status Bar and select Debug Target.

Scroll down and select iPhone 15.

You should now see iOS: iPhone 15 as the new debug target.

To run the app, click the Run and Debug icon in the VS Code Activity Bar. Then click Run and Debug.

Your application will build and deploy to the iPhone simulator. Please note this may take a minute, it is virtually turning on an iPhone!

Next steps

Congratulations, you've built and run your first .NET MAUI app!

Keep learning

Now that you've got the basics, continue learning how to build .NET MAUI apps with the self-guided learning path on Microsoft Learn.

.NET MAUI Learning Path

.NET MAUI for Beginners

Let James walk you through building a full .NET MAUI app from start to finish:

Developer docs

Dig deeper with the documentation for .NET MAUI

.NET MAUI samples

Explore the .NET MAUI samples on GitHub

.NET MAUI Tutorial - Build your first multi-platform app in C#