MacDependency shows all dependent libraries and frameworks of a given executable, dynamic library or framework on Mac OS X. It is a GUI replacement for the otool command, and provides almost the same functionality as the Dependency Walker (http://www.dependencywalker.com) on Windows.

More information available in the Wiki.

• Auto-open Example: When launched without arguments, MacDependency automatically opens and displays its own binary as a working example
• Command-Line Support: Open files directly from the command line
• Multiple Architectures: View dependencies for different CPU architectures (x86_64, ARM64, etc.)
• Symbol Table Viewer: Browse symbol tables and exported functions
• Dependency Tree: Hierarchical view of all library dependencies

Simply double-click MacDependency.app or drag a file onto the application icon to analyze it.

When launched without any file, MacDependency will automatically open itself as an example, showing you how the application works.

You can also launch MacDependency from the command line to analyze specific files:

# Open a single application
MacDependency.app/Contents/MacOS/MacDependency /Applications/Safari.app

# Open a binary directly
MacDependency.app/Contents/MacOS/MacDependency /bin/ls

# Open multiple files (each opens in a separate window)
MacDependency.app/Contents/MacOS/MacDependency /bin/ls /bin/cat /usr/bin/tar

# Use relative paths
cd /Applications
MacDependency.app/Contents/MacOS/MacDependency Safari.app

Important: On macOS 11 (Big Sur) and later, system frameworks and libraries are not available as individual files. They are stored in a prebuilt dyld shared cache for performance.

If you try to analyze system files, you'll see errors like:

ERROR: Couldn't open file '/System/Library/Frameworks/Cocoa.framework/Versions/A/Cocoa'
ERROR: Couldn't open file '/usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib'

This is expected behavior - these files literally don't exist on disk anymore.

✅ User Applications: /Applications/*.app ✅ Third-party binaries: Any non-system executables ✅ Your own compiled binaries: Custom built applications ✅ Older macOS system copies: If you have pre-Big Sur system libraries

❌ System frameworks: /System/Library/Frameworks/* (cached) ❌ System libraries: /usr/lib/* (cached)

To analyze system libraries, you would need to:

1. Extract them from the dyld shared cache at /System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/System/Library/dyld/*
2. Use Apple's dyld_shared_cache_util tool to extract individual libraries
3. Then analyze the extracted files with MacDependency

Example:

# Extract libraries from shared cache (requires Full Disk Access)
# This is an advanced operation
dyld_shared_cache_util -extract /tmp/extracted \
  /System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/System/Library/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_arm64e

# Then analyze the extracted libraries
MacDependency.app/Contents/MacOS/MacDependency /tmp/extracted/usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib

• macOS with Xcode installed
• Command line tools for Xcode

To build MacDependency from source:

cd MacDependency
xcodebuild -project MacDependency.xcodeproj -scheme MacDependency -configuration Release \
  CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="-" AD_HOC_CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=YES clean build

The built application will be located at:

~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/MacDependency-*/Build/Products/Release/MacDependency.app

Note: The build command includes ad-hoc code signing which is required for the app to run on modern macOS versions. After building, you may need to sign the embedded framework:

codesign -f -s - ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/MacDependency-*/Build/Products/Release/MacDependency.app/Contents/Frameworks/MachO.framework
codesign -f -s - ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/MacDependency-*/Build/Products/Release/MacDependency.app

You can also open the project in Xcode and build from the IDE:

1. Open MacDependency/MacDependency.xcodeproj in Xcode
2. Select the MacDependency scheme
3. Choose Product > Build (⌘B)

After building, you can create a DMG installer using the included script:

./create_dmg_for_app.sh