Installing the XPT2046 Touchscreen Library for Arduino

XPT2046_Touchscreen can be installed through the Arduino IDE’s built-in Library Manager, PlatformIO’s dependency system, or by manually importing a ZIP archive from GitHub. All three methods result in an identical installation — choose whichever fits your workflow.

Arduino IDE 1.6.0 or later is required. The library header enforces this with a compile-time #error and will refuse to compile on older IDE versions that ship an incompatible SPI library.

Choose Your Method

Arduino IDE
PlatformIO
Manual ZIP

The Library Manager is the easiest way to install and keep the library up to date inside the Arduino IDE.

Open the Library Manager

In the Arduino IDE, go to Sketch → Include Library → Manage Libraries… (or press Ctrl+Shift+I / ⌘+Shift+I). The Library Manager panel will open and index available libraries.

Search for the library

Type XPT2046_Touchscreen into the search box. The library by Paul Stoffregen will appear in the results.

Install

Select the latest version from the drop-down (1.4 at time of writing) and click Install. The IDE downloads and unpacks the library into your Arduino libraries/ folder automatically.

Verify

After installation, go to File → Examples → XPT2046_Touchscreen and confirm that the TouchTest example appears in the menu.

PlatformIO resolves and downloads the library automatically from its registry when you declare it as a dependency in your project configuration.

Open platformio.ini

Open the platformio.ini file at the root of your PlatformIO project. If you are starting fresh, create a new project in PlatformIO IDE or with pio project init.

Add the library to lib_deps

Add paulstoffregen/XPT2046_Touchscreen to the lib_deps key for your environment:

[env:uno]
platform = atmelavr
board = uno
framework = arduino
lib_deps =
    paulstoffregen/XPT2046_Touchscreen

For a Teensy 4.1 project the environment would look like:

[env:teensy41]
platform = teensy
board = teensy41
framework = arduino
lib_deps =
    paulstoffregen/XPT2046_Touchscreen

Build the project

Run Build (the checkmark icon) or execute pio run in the terminal. PlatformIO downloads the library and its dependencies into the project’s .pio/libdeps/ directory on the first build.

Use this method if you are working offline or need a specific commit that is not yet published to the registry.

Download the ZIP

Visit the GitHub repository at github.com/PaulStoffregen/XPT2046_Touchscreen and click Code → Download ZIP. Save the file to a convenient location.

Import into the Arduino IDE

In the Arduino IDE, go to Sketch → Include Library → Add .ZIP Library…, browse to the downloaded ZIP file, and click Open. The IDE will extract the archive into your libraries/ folder.

Restart the IDE

Close and reopen the Arduino IDE so it rescans the libraries/ folder and picks up the new entry in the Examples menu.

Dependencies

Dependency	Required?	Notes
Arduino `SPI` library	Yes	Bundled with every Arduino IDE and PlatformIO Arduino framework installation — no separate install needed.
`FlexIOSPI`	Only on Teensy 4.x with FlexIO	Optional. The library auto-detects its presence via `#if __has_include(<FlexIOSPI.h>)` and enables FlexIO support only when the header is found.

No other third-party libraries are required. The XPT2046_Touchscreen library deliberately avoids Adafruit GFX or any display driver dependency so it can be used independently of whichever TFT rendering library you choose.

Including the Library in Your Sketch

Once installed, add these two includes at the top of every sketch that uses the touchscreen:

#include <SPI.h>
#include <XPT2046_Touchscreen.h>

SPI.h must be included before XPT2046_Touchscreen.h so that the SPI types are defined when the touchscreen header is processed. The Arduino IDE typically handles include ordering automatically when you use Sketch → Include Library, but it is good practice to list SPI.h first.

Get Started

Guides

API Reference

Examples

Installing the XPT2046 Touchscreen Library for Arduino

Choose Your Method

Dependencies

Including the Library in Your Sketch

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get Started

Guides

API Reference

Examples

Documentation Index

​Choose Your Method

​Dependencies

​Including the Library in Your Sketch

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Choose Your Method

Dependencies

Including the Library in Your Sketch