For the better part of 2 hours I tried and failed to get the Memcache extension installed on MAMP. I tried following several guides, but everything fell flat on it’s face about 75% of the way through. I eventually figured it out, and I wanted to share it so that other people don’t have to go through the pain and suffering that I did. It turns out to be surprisingly easy, but YMMV.

Step 1: Install XCode

Step 2: Make the MAMP PHP binary files executable

sudo chmod +xrw / Applications / MAMP / bin / php5.3 / bin / p * sudo chmod +xrw /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5.3/bin/p*

Step 3: Get the Memcache extension source

cd ~ wget http: // pecl.php.net / get / memcache-2.2.5.tgz tar -zxvf memcache-2.2.5.tgz cd memcache-2.2.5 cd ~ wget http://pecl.php.net/get/memcache-2.2.5.tgz tar -zxvf memcache-2.2.5.tgz cd memcache-2.2.5

Step 4: PHPize the Memcache extension files

/ Applications / MAMP / bin / php5.3 / bin / phpize /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5.3/bin/phpize

Step 5: Compile the Memcache extension

. / configure make ./configure make

Step 6: Add the extension to the PHP.ini file

Add the following to the end of your PHP 5.3 ini file via the MAMP file menu.

extension =memcache.so extension=memcache.so

Step 7: Copy the memcache extension to the PHP extension folder

cp modules / memcache.so / Applications / MAMP / bin / php5.3 / lib / php / extensions / no-debug-non-zts- [ yourtimestamp ] / cp modules/memcache.so /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5.3/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-[yourtimestamp]/

The “[yourtimestamp]” varies per installation, but you should just be able to tab complete that part.