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Install on macOS

Tested on macOS 13 (Ventura), 14 (Sonoma), and 15 (Sequoia) on Intel and Apple Silicon.

1. Install Homebrew (if needed)​

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

2. System dependencies​

brew install python@3.12 git git-lfs portaudio libsndfile ffmpeg cmake pkg-config
brew install blackhole-2ch    # virtual audio cable

For v0.2+ GNU Radio flowgraphs:

brew install gnuradio soapysdr
# gr-dnn ships as a wheel in v0.2; see Architecture → Flowgraphs

3. Virtual cable setup​

BlackHole is the de-facto free virtual cable on macOS.

  1. After brew install blackhole-2ch, open Audio MIDI Setup (⌘+Space → "Audio MIDI Setup").
  2. Click + → Create Multi-Output Device.
  3. Check both BlackHole 2ch and your MacBook / external speakers.
  4. Rename it to something obvious like "RFW-Listen".

Use BlackHole 2ch as RFWhisper's output device and as WSJT-X's input device.

4. RFWhisper​

git clone https://github.com/jakenherman/rfwhisper.git
cd rfwhisper
python3.12 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -U pip wheel
pip install -e ".[audio]"
python -m rfwhisper.models.fetch
rfwhisper doctor

5. Apple Silicon: CoreML acceleration​

onnxruntime on Apple Silicon includes the CoreML execution provider automatically. RFWhisper will prefer it when available:

rfwhisper info providers
# CoreMLExecutionProvider   (preferred on M-series)
# CPUExecutionProvider      (fallback)

This typically halves inference latency vs CPU-only for DeepFilterNet3.

6. Privacy & mic permissions​

macOS will prompt for microphone access the first time you run rfwhisper denoise-live. If you miss the prompt:

  • System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone — allow Terminal (or your editor).

Troubleshooting​

  • OSError: PortAudio library not found — brew reinstall portaudio and ensure your shell picks up /opt/homebrew/bin on the PATH (Apple Silicon) or /usr/local/bin (Intel).
  • No sound through BlackHole — verify the Multi-Output Device is selected as system output; check that input/output sample rates match (48 kHz is our default).
  • arm64 vs x86_64 pip conflicts — create your venv with the native Python (which python3.12 should end in /opt/homebrew/ on Apple Silicon).
  • Rosetta — not required. Do not install x86_64 Python on Apple Silicon; you'll lose CoreML.