Installation

APOC Core is packaged with Neo4j and can be found in the $NEO4J_HOME/labs directory. APOC Full can be downloaded using one of the methods described in the sections below.

APOC Full contains all the procedures and functions included in APOC Core. You must not install both libraries.

APOC Core

APOC Core can be installed by moving the APOC jar file from the $NEO4J_HOME/labs directory to the $NEO4J_HOME/plugins directory and restarting Neo4j.

Neo4j Desktop

APOC Full can be installed with Neo4j Desktop, after creating your database, by going to the Manage screen, and then the Plugins tab. Click Install in the APOC box and wait until you see a green check mark near "APOC".

desktop apoc

Neo4j Server

Since APOC relies on Neo4j’s internal APIs you need to use the matching APOC version for your Neo4j installaton. Make sure that the first two version numbers match between Neo4j and APOC.

Go to the latest release for Neo4j version 4.3 and download the binary jar to place into your $NEO4J_HOME/plugins folder.

You can find all releases here.

After you move the jar file to the plugins folder you have to restart neo4j with neo4j restart

Since APOC relies on Neo4j’s internal APIs, you need to use the right APOC version for your Neo4j installation.

APOC uses a consistent versioning scheme: <neo4j-version>.<apoc> version. The trailing <apoc> part of the version number will be incremented with every apoc release.

The version compatibility matrix explains the mapping between Neo4j and APOC versions:

apoc version neo4j version

4.4.0.1

4.4.0 (4.3.x)

4.3.0.4

4.3.7 (4.3.x)

4.2.0.9

4.2.11 (4.2.x)

4.1.0.10

4.1.11 (4.1.x)

4.0.0.18

4.0.12 (4.0.x)

3.5.0.15

3.5.30 (3.5.x)

3.4.0.8

3.4.18 (3.4.x)

3.3.0.4

3.3.9 (3.3.x)

3.2.3.6

3.2.14 (3.2.x)

3.1.3.9

3.1.9 (3.1.x)

3.0.8.6

3.0.12 (3.0.x)

3.5.0.0

3.5.0-beta01

3.4.0.2

3.4.5

3.3.0.3

3.3.5

3.2.3.5

3.2.3

3.1.3.8

3.1.5

If by mistake a jar not compatible with the neo4j version is inserted, a log.warn like this will appear in neo4j.log:

The apoc version (<APOC_VERSION>) and the Neo4j DBMS versions [NEO4J_VERSION] are incompatible.
See the compatibility matrix in https://neo4j.com/labs/apoc/4.4/installation/ to see the correct version

Docker

APOC Full can be used with the Neo4j Docker image via the NEO4JLABS_PLUGINS environment variable. If we use this environment variable, the APOC plugin will be downloaded and configured at runtime.

This feature is intended to facilitate using APOC in development environments, but it is not recommended for use in production environments.
The following runs Neo4j 4.0 in a Docker container with the latest version of the APOC Library
docker run \
    -p 7474:7474 -p 7687:7687 \
    -v $PWD/data:/data -v $PWD/plugins:/plugins \
    --name neo4j-apoc \
    -e NEO4J_apoc_export_file_enabled=true \
    -e NEO4J_apoc_import_file_enabled=true \
    -e NEO4J_apoc_import_file_use__neo4j__config=true \
    -e NEO4JLABS_PLUGINS=\[\"apoc\"\] \
    neo4j:4.0

We should see the following two lines in the output after running this command:

Fetching versions.json for Plugin 'apoc' from https://neo4j-contrib.github.io/neo4j-apoc-procedures/versions.json
Installing Plugin 'apoc' from https://github.com/neo4j-contrib/neo4j-apoc-procedures/releases/download/4.3.0.12/4.3.0.12-all.jar to /plugins/apoc.jar

In a production environment we should download the APOC release matching our Neo4j version and, copy it to a local folder, and supply it as a data volume mounted at /plugins.

The following downloads the APOC Library into the plugins directory and then mounts that folder to the Neo4j Docker container
mkdir plugins
pushd plugins
wget https://github.com/neo4j-contrib/neo4j-apoc-procedures/releases/download/4.3.0.12/apoc-4.3.0.12-all.jar
popd
docker run --rm -e NEO4J_AUTH=none -p 7474:7474 -v $PWD/plugins:/plugins -p 7687:7687 neo4j:4.3

If you want to pass custom apoc config to your Docker instance, you can use environment variables, like here:

docker run \
    -p 7474:7474 -p 7687:7687 \
    -v $PWD/data:/data -v $PWD/plugins:/plugins \
    --name neo4j-apoc \
    -e NEO4J_apoc_export_file_enabled=true \
    -e NEO4J_apoc_import_file_enabled=true \
    -e NEO4J_apoc_import_file_use__neo4j__config=true \
    neo4j

Restricted procedures/functions

For security reasons, procedures that use internal APIs are disabled by default. They can be enabled by specifying config in $NEO4J_HOME/conf/neo4j.conf e.g. dbms.security.procedures.unrestricted=apoc.*

If you want to do this when using the Neo4j Docker container, you need to amend -e NEO4J_dbms_security_procedures_unrestricted=apoc.\\\* to your docker run …​ command. The three backslashes are necessary to prevent wildcard expansions.

You can also whitelist procedures and functions in general to be loaded using: dbms.security.procedures.whitelist=apoc.coll.*,apoc.load.*