I just use this version. https://emacsformacosx.com/ I have a one line shell script that then lets me start Emacs from the cmd line. something like

    open -A [path to applications/emacs startup] $@

This supports emacs —daemon

That is what I use.

Additionally in my .bashrc I have:

  EMACS="/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs"
  EMACSPOS="-g 140x66+655+23 --fullheight"
  e() { ( $EMACS $EMACSPOS "$@" & ) }

I also have it in the dock, but sometimes environment variables are not set up properly.

For this case, I create a plist file ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist and can add stuff to it like this:

    add_plist PATH "$PATH"

where:

  add_plist () {
    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete :'"$1" ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist >/dev/null
    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add :'"$1"' string "'"$2"'"' ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist >/dev/null
  }

I wrote the last reply from my phone. The command is simply

/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs “$@“

The script goes into /usr/local/bin or wherever that’s in your path.

Best is subjective, but my current go-to is:

```

$ brew tap d12frosted/emacs-plus

$ brew install emacs-plus [options]

```

Cf. https://github.com/d12frosted/homebrew-emacs-plus

I use the “Emacs Mac Port” which is available via Homebrew.

https://github.com/railwaycat/homebrew-emacsmacport

I keep a clone of the main GNU Emacs git repository and build the emacs-27 branch (27 is the upcoming release) every few days on my MacBook (and the master branch on my Linux workstation).