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Add third-party platforms to the Boards Manager in Arduino IDE

About third-party platforms

By default, Arduino IDE installs and updates the board platforms from the official Arduino package list[1]. This lets you install and update Arduino platforms, for use with official Arduino boards, as well as third-party boards compatible with the official Arduino platform.

The Board Manager can also be used for conveniently installing and updating platforms that are not in the official package list, if the creator provides a platform index URL (ending with _index.json). You can use this URL to configure additional Board Manager URLs.

These are some reasons you may want to an additional Board Manager URL:

  • Add support for a platform created by a third-party manufacturer
  • Add platforms created by the open source community
  • Testing a beta release that hasn’t been added to the official list

If you have a “clone” UNO or Nano board, you will probably want to use the corresponding Arduino board from the Arduino AVR Boards platform, which is available in the Boards Manager by default. To learn how to install a platform already available in the Boards Manager, see Add boards to Arduino IDE.

Add or remove additional Board Manager URLs

Follow these steps:

  1. Open Preferences using the menu bar:

    • Windows/Linux: File > Preferences
    • macOS: Arduino IDE > Preferences[2]

  2. Find the Additional boards manager URLs setting toward the bottom.

    Note: If you can’t find the setting, put your cursor in the middle of the Preferences window and scroll down.

    Preferences, the text "Additional boards manager URLs" is highlighted.

  3. Click the button to the right of the text field to open the Additional Boards Manager URLs window.

    Preferences, a button with an application window icon is highlighted.

  4. Paste or remove URLs in the window. There should be one URL for each line.

    The Additional Boards Manager URLs window.

  5. Click OK to close the Additional Boards Manager URLs window.

  6. Click OK again to close Preferences and save the changes.

You can now install the platform with Boards Manager by following the instructions here

Further reading

  1. https://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json ↩︎

  2. If you’re using Arduino IDE 2.1 or older, this option may be called Arduino IDE > Settings. (#2022) ↩︎

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