# libVTKIO not found
**URL:** https://discourse.vtk.org/t/libvtkio-not-found/16316
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [March 5, 2026, 11:29pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/libvtkio-not-found/16316 "2026-03-05T23:29:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jsandhu](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/jsandhu)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2026, 11:29pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/libvtkio-not-found/16316/1 "2026-03-05T23:29:25Z")
I inherited some C++ code that uses VTK. I’m on macOS Sequoia 15.7.4.
I installed VTK via homebrew. I can see the install in /usr/local/cellar/vtk/9.5.2\_3.
The makefile uses -lvtkIO -lvtkCommon -lvtkFiltering … (among many) as options to the compiler.
The compilation fails with message “ld: library ‘vtkIO’ not found“
I cannot see any libvtkIO in the install location. But I do see a whole lot of libvtkIOxxxxx.dylib files, where xxxxx corresponds to various files like libvtkIOChemistry-9.5.dylib, libvtkIOAMR-9.5.dylib, etc. I did make sure that the compiler has the correct path to the location:
LIB\_VTK = -L/usr/local/Cellar/vtk/9.5.2\_3/lib -lvtkIO -lvtkCommon -lvtkFiltering …
Can somebody guide me as to how to solve this? I’m new to VTK, I didn’t write the code, and I don’t know much about compilers :(. Do I have to build VTK from scratch ?
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### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2026, 11:52am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/libvtkio-not-found/16316/2 "2026-03-06T11:52:45Z")
Those `vtkIO` library names are ancient. The only supported way to update the code to a modern VTK is to:
- use CMake for the project and `find_package(VTK)` (preferred)
- update the code to use modern VTK library names (enabling kits in the VTK build will bundle multiple modules into larger libraries; disabling the versioned suffixes would also get you closer)
Note that APIs have changed significantly since that time, so I imagine there are C++ changes to do as well.
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### Author:  [@jsandhu](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/jsandhu)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2026, 9:02pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/libvtkio-not-found/16316/3 "2026-03-11T21:02:26Z")
Thanks. I downloaded vtk 5.8.0 and attempted to compile it. After some effort I keep getting these 3 failures:
CMake Error at Utilities/vtkhdf5/src/CMakeLists.txt:607 (ADD\_CUSTOM\_COMMAND):
No TARGET
‘/Users/jsandhu/Downloads/vtk-v5.8.0/Utilities/vtkhdf5/H5Edefin.h’ has been
created in this directory.
CMake Error at Utilities/vtkhdf5/src/CMakeLists.txt:614 (ADD\_CUSTOM\_COMMAND):
No TARGET
‘/Users/jsandhu/Downloads/vtk-v5.8.0/Utilities/vtkhdf5/H5version.h’ has
been created in this directory.
CMake Error at Utilities/vtkhdf5/src/CMakeLists.txt:621 (ADD\_CUSTOM\_COMMAND):
No TARGET
‘/Users/jsandhu/Downloads/vtk-v5.8.0/Utilities/vtkhdf5/H5overflow.h’ has
been created in this directory.
These are from these lines of code:
I don’t know cmake, so can’t figure out what this means. Any tips ?
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### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2026, 3:03am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/libvtkio-not-found/16316/4 "2026-03-13T03:03:18Z")
I can’t say directly off-hand, but I suspect an ancient CMake may be necessary too at this point. CMake 4.0 will definitely be grumpy about its minimum required version at least. Can you try a similarly vintaged CMake? 2.8.8 ma do, but 2.8.12 or 3.0.2 is where I’d start.