Installing Atom

To get started with Atom, we'll need to get it on your system. This section will go over installing Atom on your system as well as the basics of how to build it from source.

Installing Atom should be fairly simple. Generally, you can go to https://atom.io and you should see a download button as shown here:

Download buttons on https://atom.io

The button or buttons should be specific to your platform and the download package should be easily installable. However, let's go over them here in a bit of detail.

Installing Atom on Mac

Atom follows the standard Mac zip installation process. You can either press the download button from the https://atom.io site or you can go to the Atom releases page to download the atom-mac.zip file explicitly. Once you have that file, you can click on it to extract the application and then drag the new Atom application into your "Applications" folder.

When you first open Atom, it will try to install the atom and apm commands for use in the terminal. In some cases, Atom might not be able to install these commands because it needs an administrator password. To check if Atom was able to install the atom command, for example, open a terminal window and type which atom. If the atom command has been installed, you'll see something like this:

which atom
/usr/local/bin/atom
$

If the atom command wasn't installed, the which command won't return anything:

which atom
$

To install the atom and apm commands, run "Window: Install Shell Commands" from the Command Palette, which will prompt you for an administrator password.

Installing Atom on Windows

Atom is available with Windows installers that can be downloaded from https://atom.io or from the Atom releases page. Use AtomSetup.exe for 32-bit systems and AtomSetup-x64.exe for 64-bit systems. This setup program will install Atom, add the atom and apm commands to your PATH, and create shortcuts on the desktop and in the start menu.

Atom on Windows

The context menu Open with Atom in File Explorer, and the option to make Atom available for file association using Open with..., is controlled by the System Settings panel as seen above.

With Atom open, click on File > Settings, and then the System tab on the left. Check the boxes next to Show in file context menus, as well as Show in folder context menus. And you’re all set.

Installing Atom on Linux

You can install Atom on Linux using your distribution's package manager by configuring it to use one of our official package repositories. This will also enable you to update Atom when new releases are published.

Debian and Ubuntu (deb/apt)

To install Atom on Debian, Ubuntu, or related distributions, add our official
package repository to your system by running the following commands:

wget -qO - https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/gpgkey | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/any/ any main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/atom.list'
sudo apt-get update

You can now install Atom using apt-get (or apt on Ubuntu):

# Install Atom
sudo apt-get install atom
# Install Atom Beta
sudo apt-get install atom-beta

Alternatively, you can download the Atom .deb package and install it directly:

# Install Atom
sudo apt install ./atom-amd64.deb

Red Hat and CentOS (YUM), or Fedora (DNF)

To install Atom on CentOS, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Scientific Linux, Fedora, or related distributions that use the YUM or DNF package managers, add our official package repository to your system by running the following commands:

sudo rpm --import https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/gpgkey
sudo sh -c 'echo -e "[Atom]\nname=Atom Editor\nbaseurl=https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/el/7/\$basearch\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=0\nrepo_gpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/gpgkey" > /etc/yum.repos.d/atom.repo'

You can now install Atom using dnf (or yum depending on your distribution):

# Install Atom
sudo dnf install atom
# Install Atom Beta
sudo dnf install atom-beta

Alternatively, you can download the Atom .rpm package and install it directly:

# On YUM-based distributions
sudo yum install -y atom.x86_64.rpm
# On DNF-based distributions
sudo dnf install -y atom.x86_64.rpm

SUSE (zypp)

To install Atom on openSUSE or other distributions that use the Zypp package manager, add our official package repository to your system by running the following commands:

sudo sh -c 'echo -e "[Atom]\nname=Atom Editor\nbaseurl=https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/el/7/\$basearch\nenabled=1\ntype=rpm-md\ngpgcheck=0\nrepo_gpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/gpgkey" > /etc/zypp/repos.d/atom.repo'
sudo zypper --gpg-auto-import-keys refresh

You can now install Atom using zypper:

# Install Atom
sudo zypper install atom
# Install Atom Beta
sudo zypper install atom-beta

Alternatively, you can download the Atom .rpm package and install it directly:

sudo zypper in -y atom.x86_64.rpm

Updating Atom

You should consider updating Atom periodically for the latest improvements to the software. Additionally, When Atom receives hotfixes for security vulnerabilities you will want to update your version of Atom as soon as possible.

"Automatically Update" is enabled by default in Core Settings of the Settings View, which will allow Atom to check for updates automatically. If you disable this setting you can update Atom manually.

To perform a manual update:

Click on the Atom > Check for Update menu item in the menu bar.
Search for Application: About in the Command Palette and click the Check now button.

Atom will begin to update if an update is available.

"Automatically Update" is enabled by default in Core Settings of the Settings View, which will allow Atom to check for updates automatically. If you disable this setting you can update Atom manually.

To perform a manual update:

Click on the Help > Check for Update menu item in the menu bar.
Search for Application: About in the Command Palette and click the Check now button.

Atom will begin to update if an update is available.

If you are using Atom's official package repositories, use your distribution's package manager to update Atom. Otherwise, you will need to manually download and install the latest .rpm or .deb package from https://atom.io. For more details, see Installing Atom on Linux.

Portable Mode

Atom stores configuration and state in a .atom directory usually located in your home directory (%userprofile% on Windows). You can however run Atom in portable mode where both the app and the configuration are stored together such as on a removable storage device.

To setup Atom in portable mode download the zip/tar.gz package for your system and extract it to your removable storage.

Then create a .atom directory alongside the directory that contains atom.exe, for example:

e:\atom-1.14\atom.exe
e:\.atom

Then create a .atom directory alongside the Atom.app application, for example:

/MyUSB/Atom.app
/MyUSB/.atom

Then create a .atom directory alongside the directory that contains the Atom binary, for example:

/media/myusb/atom-1.14/atom
/media/myusb/.atom

Portable Notes

The .atom directory must be writeable
You can move an existing .atom directory to your portable device
Atom can also store its Electron user data in your .atom directory - just create a subdirectory called electronUserData inside .atom
Alternatively you can set the ATOM_HOME environment variable to point wherever you want (you can write a .sh or .cmd script to temporarily set it and launch it from that)
Portable mode installations will not automatically update

Building Atom from Source

The Hacking on Atom Core section of the flight manual covers instructions on how to clone and build the source code if you prefer that option.

Proxy and Firewall Settings

Behind a Firewall?

If you are behind a firewall and seeing SSL errors when installing packages you can disable strict SSL by running:

apm config set strict-ssl false

Using a Proxy?

If you are using a HTTP(S) proxy you can configure apm to use it by running:

apm config set https-proxy YOUR_PROXY_ADDRESS

You can run apm config get https-proxy to verify it has been set correctly.

Chapter 1: Getting Started

Chapter 2: Using Atom

Chapter 3: Hacking Atom

Chapter 4: Behind Atom

Reference: API

Appendix A: Resources

Appendix B: FAQ

Appendix C: Shadow DOM

Appendix D: Upgrading to 1.0 APIs

Appendix E: Atom server-side APIs

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