How to run Eclipse MAT (Memory Analyzer Tool) on macOS

Hi! In this article, I would like to describe the issue I faced with running Eclipse’s MAT (Memory Analyzer Tool) on macOS. I’m using macOS Catalina (version 10.15.4).

Download MAT

I’ve downloaded MAT from the official page — https://www.eclipse.org/mat/downloads.php and then unpacked downloaded ZIP archive. At first, I couldn’t open the application because of the following warning:

If you see the same warning, instead of clicking LMB twice, click RMB once and after that choose Open.

Problem — An error has occurred

Oops! That does not look good. Let’s see what the error was. In terminal go to the directory under displayed path and list files:

Open .log file in your favourite editor (which is VIM of course) or in something more syntax-highlighting friendly (like VS Code) and check what the error is:

The important part is:

Solution

After a little bit of stackoverflowing I found a solution in one of the responses from this question How to run Eclipse memory analyzer on macOS?

1. Create a directory for MAT workspace:

2. Move MAT to applications directory:

3. Update MAT initial settings by providing workspace path:

Go to MAT application directory and find MemoryAnalyzer.ini file

Add the following lines to MemoryAnalyzer.ini:

In my case the whole file has the following content:

Voila !

Now you can type “mat.app” in Spotlight Search and application should open without any errors :)

Words by Aleksander Kołata, Senior Full Stack Developer at Altimetrik Poland

Copywriting by Kinga Kuśnierz, Content Writer at Altimetrik Poland