Install#

There are a few different ways to install Arelle depending on your requirements.

Prepackaged Distributions#

The Arelle distribution builds are self contained bundles that provide an executable and include the Arelle source code along with its dependencies and a Python runtime ready to run out of the box. These distributions include all of the plugins in the Arelle repo, along with the Arelle ixbrl-viewer, the SEC EdgarRenderer, and XULE.

Distributions are provided for Windows, macOS, and Linux and can be downloaded from the Arelle website and GitHub release page.

Clean Install#

Arelle stores configuration data and comes with a number of installation files. If your installation of Arelle isn’t behaving as expected it can be beneficial to try deleting (or moving) these files and performing a fresh installation.

Linux#

  1. Delete the directory where you extracted the Arelle download.

  2. If the ~/.config/arelle/ configuration directory exists, delete it.

  3. Reinstall Arelle using the latest release.

macOS#

  1. If the /Applications/Arelle.app application exists, delete it.

  2. If the ~/Library/Application Support/Arelle configuration directory exists, delete it.

  3. If the ~/Library/Caches/Arelle cache directory exists, delete it.

  4. Reinstall Arelle using the latest release.

Windows#

  1. If the file C:\Program Files\Arelle\Uninstall.exe exists, run it.

  2. If the C:\Program Files\Arelle application directory exists, delete it.

  3. If the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Arelle configuration directory exists, delete it.

  4. Reinstall Arelle using the latest release.

From Python Source#

See the contributing documentation for setting up your environment if you’re comfortable setting up your own Python environment and would like to run Arelle from source.

Python Package#

If you would like to use Arelle as a Python library or you want to use your own Python runtime, but would rather not clone the repo, you can use pip to install Arelle.

The Arelle Python package defines optional extra dependencies for various plugins and use cases.

  • Crypto (security plugin dependencies)

  • DB (database plugin dependencies)

  • EFM (EdgarRenderer plugin dependencies - does not include the EdgarRenderer, just the dependencies required to run it)

  • ObjectMaker (ObjectMaker plugin dependencies)

  • WebServer (dependencies for running the Arelle web server)

# to install Arelle and its base dependencies
pip install arelle-release
# to install Arelle with all optional dependencies
pip install arelle-release[Crypto,DB,EFM,ObjectMaker,WebServer]

The Arelle command line and GUI applications should then be available on your path.

# To run the command line
arelleCmdLine --help

# To launch the GUI
arelleGUI