Hi,
sad to hear you had such trouble, but usually this is really a simple procedure, provided you have a standard OSX setup.
However, it is essential to know exactly what errors you got and where got stuck, in order to help you.
The MySQL server is running in the background and you can check that fact by running this in a terminal:
> ps aux | grep mysql
In your system settings there is also an applet "MySQL" which is installed by the server dmg. You can use this to start and stop the server.
Now run MySQL Workbench and you should see a tile on the home screen to this installed server. WB scans your installations to find existing servers (via the process list above, so the server must be running to be detected). You should be able to just connect to it by clicking on this tile.
Mike
Mike Lischke, MySQL Developer Tools
Oracle Corporation
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Report bugs to
http://bugs.mysql.com
MySQL documentation can be found here:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/