ESP8266 Community Forum

Updated the link in my previous post for those with faulty scrollbars.

Here are all the instructions:
Installing with Boards Manager
Starting with 1.6.4, Arduino allows installation of third-party platform packages using Boards Manager. We have packages available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux (32 and 64 bit).

Install the current upstream Arduino IDE at the 1.8 level or later. The current version is at the Arduino website.
Start Arduino and open Preferences window.
Enter http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/packa ... index.json into Additional Board Manager URLs field. You can add multiple URLs, separating them with commas.
Open Boards Manager from Tools > Board menu and install esp8266 platform (and don't forget to select your ESP8266 board from Tools > Board menu after installation).
Latest release Latest release
Boards manager link: http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/packa ... index.json

Documentation: https://arduino-esp8266.readthedocs.io/en/2.4.1/
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I already have Arduino 1.8 instaled. so I skipped that step.
I entered the http:/ ...long line, adding a comma.
I went to the latest release below that, and downloaded the latest release of esp8266-2.4.1.zip.
I unzipped it. It ended up as a folder in the documents center. There is no esp8226 showing in the boards mgr. so how do i proceed from here to install the esp8266 package?

You either use the boardsmanager or do a manual install, not both.

After having installed the Arduino IDE, go to its install folder and set the properties of that folder (and every folder under it) to "Read only" OFF and give user permissions to "Allow to all" or both read, write as execute.

Now start the Arduino IDE, enter the board URL into settings and restart the IDE.
Now go to the boards manager, enter "ESP8266" as search phrase and it should be there.

Thanks so much! I did not see the up button on the boards mgr. Once I found that I was able to scroll down to the ESP8266, and hit the install button.