4/2/2021 Using Rtools40 on Windows
Using Rtools40 on Windows
Starting with R 4.0.0 (released April 2020), R for Windows uses a brand new toolchain bundle called
rtools40.
This version of Rtools upgrades the mingw-w64 gcc toolchains to version 8.3.0, and introduces a new build
system based on msys2, which makes easier to build and maintain R itself as well as the system libraries
needed by R packages on Windows. For more information about the latter, follow the links at the bottom of
this document.
This documentation is about rtools40, the current version used for R 4.0.0 and newer. For information about
previous versions of Rtools that can be used with R 3.6.3 or older, please visit this page.
Installing Rtools40
Note that rtools40 is only needed build R packages with C/C++/Fortran code from source. By default, R for
Windows installs the precompiled “binary packages” from CRAN, for which you do not need rtools!
To use rtools40, download the installer from CRAN:
On Windows 64-bit: rtools40-x86_64.exe (recommended: includes both i386 and x64 compilers)
On Windows 32-bit: rtools40-i686.exe (i386 compilers only)
Note for RStudio users: please check you are using the latest version of RStudio (at least 1.2.5042) to
work with rtools40.
Putting Rtools on the PATH
https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/ 1/2
4/2/2021 Using Rtools40 on Windows
After installation is complete, you need to perform one more step to be able to compile R packages: you
need to put the location of the Rtools make utilities (bash, make, etc) on the PATH. The easiest way to do so is
create a text file .Renviron in your Documents folder which contains the following line:
PATH="${RTOOLS40_HOME}\usr\bin;${PATH}"
You can do this with a text editor, or you can even do it from R like so:
writeLines('PATH="${RTOOLS40_HOME}\\usr\\bin;${PATH}"', con = "~/.Renviron")
Now restart R, and verify that make can be found, which should show the path to your Rtools installation.
Sys.which("make")
## "C:\\rtools40\\usr\\bin\\make.exe"
If this works, you can try to install an R package from source:
install.packages("jsonlite", type = "source")
If this succeeds, you’re good to go! See the links below to learn more about rtools40 and the Windows build
infrastructure.
Further Documentation
More documentation about using rtools40 for R users and package authors:
Using pacman: the new rtools package manager to build and install C/C++ system libraries.
Installing R packages: Some older R packages that need extra help to compile.
FAQ: Common questions about Rtools40 and R on Windows.
Advanced information about building R base and building system libraries:
r-base: Scripts for building R for Windows using rtools40.
rtools-packages: Toolchains and static libraries for rtools40 (GCC 8+)
rtools-backports: Backported C/C++ libraries for the gcc-4.9.3 legacy toolchain (for R 3.3 - 3.6)
rtools-installer: Builds the rtools40 installer bundle.
https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/ 2/2
