# Electron Packager

Package your [Electron](https://electronjs.org) app into OS-specific bundles (`.app`, `.exe`, etc.) via JavaScript or the command line.

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[Supported Platforms](#supported-platforms) |
[Installation](#installation) |
[Usage](#usage) |
[API](https://electron.github.io/electron-packager/main/) |
[Contributing](https://github.com/electron/electron-packager/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md) |
[Support](https://github.com/electron/electron-packager/blob/main/SUPPORT.md) |
[Related Apps/Libraries](#related) |
[FAQ](https://github.com/electron/electron-packager/blob/main/docs/faq.md) |
[Release Notes](https://github.com/electron/electron-packager/blob/main/NEWS.md)

----

## About

Electron Packager is a command line tool and Node.js library that bundles Electron-based application
source code with a renamed Electron executable and supporting files into folders ready for distribution.

For creating distributables like installers and Linux packages, consider using either [Electron
Forge](https://github.com/electron/forge) (which uses Electron Packager
internally), or one of the [related Electron tools](#distributable-creators), which utilizes
Electron Packager-created folders as a basis.

Note that packaged Electron applications can be relatively large. A zipped, minimal Electron
application is approximately the same size as the zipped prebuilt binary for a given target
platform, target arch, and [Electron version](https://github.com/electron/electron/releases)
_(files named `electron-v${version}-${platform}-${arch}.zip`)_.

## Supported Platforms

Electron Packager is known to run on the following **host** platforms:

* Windows (32/64 bit)
* macOS (formerly known as OS X)
* Linux (x86/x86_64)

It generates executables/bundles for the following **target** platforms:

* Windows (also known as `win32`, for x86, x86_64, and arm64 architectures)
* macOS (also known as `darwin`) / [Mac App Store](https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/mac-app-store-submission-guide/) (also known as `mas`)<sup>*</sup> (for x86_64, arm64, and universal architectures)
* Linux (for x86, x86_64, armv7l, arm64, and mips64el architectures)

<sup>*</sup> *Note for macOS / Mac App Store target bundles: the `.app` bundle can only be signed when building on a host macOS platform.*

## Installation

This module requires Node.js 14.17.5 or higher to run.

```sh
npm install --save-dev electron-packager
```

It is **not** recommended to install `electron-packager` globally.

### Building Windows apps from non-Windows platforms

Building an Electron app for the Windows target platform requires editing the `Electron.exe` file.
Currently, Electron Packager uses [`node-rcedit`](https://github.com/electron/node-rcedit) to accomplish
this. A Windows executable is bundled in that Node package and needs to be run in order for this
functionality to work, so on non-Windows host platforms (not including WSL),
[Wine](https://www.winehq.org/) 1.6 or later needs to be installed. On macOS, it is installable
via [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/).

## Usage

### Via JavaScript

JavaScript API usage can be found in the [API documentation](https://electron.github.io/electron-packager/main/modules/electronpackager.html).

### From the command line

Running Electron Packager from the command line has this basic form:

```
npx electron-packager <sourcedir> <appname> --platform=<platform> --arch=<arch> [optional flags...]
```

> **Note**:
> `npx` can be substituted for `yarn` or `npm exec` depending on what package manager and
> the version you have installed.

This will:

* Find or download the correct release of Electron
* Use that version of Electron to create an app in `<out>/<appname>-<platform>-<arch>` *(this can be customized via an optional flag)*

`--platform` and `--arch` can be omitted, in two cases:

* If you specify `--all` instead, bundles for all valid combinations of target
  platforms/architectures will be created.
* Otherwise, a single bundle for the host platform/architecture will be created.

For an overview of the other optional flags, run `electron-packager --help` or see
[usage.txt](https://github.com/electron/electron-packager/blob/main/usage.txt). For
detailed descriptions, see the [API documentation](https://electron.github.io/electron-packager/main/modules/electronpackager.html).

For flags that are structured as objects, you can pass each option as via dot notation as such:

```sh
npx electron-packager --flag.foo="bar"
# will pass in { flag: { foo: "bar"} } as an option to the Electron Packager API
```

If `appname` is omitted, this will use the name specified by "productName" or "name" in the nearest package.json.

**Characters in the Electron app name which are not allowed in all target platforms' filenames
(e.g., `/`), will be replaced by hyphens (`-`).**

You should be able to launch the app on the platform you built for. If not, check your settings and try again.

**Be careful** not to include `node_modules` you don't want into your final app. If you put them in
the `devDependencies` section of `package.json`, by default none of the modules related to those
dependencies will be copied in the app bundles. (This behavior can be turned off with the
`prune: false` API option or `--no-prune` CLI flag.) In addition, folders like `.git` and
`node_modules/.bin` will be ignored by default. You can use `--ignore` to ignore files and folders
via a regular expression (*not* a [glob pattern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_%28programming%29)).
Examples include `--ignore=\.gitignore` or `--ignore="\.git(ignore|modules)"`.

#### Example

Let's assume that you have made an app based on the [electron-quick-start](https://github.com/electron/electron-quick-start) repository on a macOS host platform with the following file structure:

```
foobar
├── package.json
├── index.html
├── […other files, like the app's LICENSE…]
└── script.js
```

…and that the following is true:

* `electron-packager` is installed locally
* `productName` in `package.json` has been set to `Foo Bar`
* The `electron` module is in the `devDependencies` section of `package.json`, and set to the exact version of `1.4.15`.
* `npm install` for the `Foo Bar` app has been run at least once

When one runs the following command for the first time in the `foobar` directory:

```
npx electron-packager .
```

`electron-packager` will do the following:

* Use the current directory for the `sourcedir`
* Infer the `appname` from the `productName` in `package.json`
* Infer the `appVersion` from the `version` in `package.json`
* Infer the `platform` and `arch` from the host, in this example, `darwin` platform and `x64` arch.
* Download the darwin x64 build of Electron 1.4.15 (and cache the downloads in `~/.electron`)
* Build the macOS `Foo Bar.app`
* Place `Foo Bar.app` in `foobar/Foo Bar-darwin-x64/` (since an `out` directory was not specified, it used the current working directory)

The file structure now looks like:

```
foobar
├── Foo Bar-darwin-x64
│   ├── Foo Bar.app
│   │   └── […Mac app contents…]
│   ├── LICENSE [the Electron license]
│   └── version
├── […other application bundles, like "Foo Bar-win32-x64" (sans quotes)…]
├── package.json
├── index.html
├── […other files, like the app's LICENSE…]
└── script.js
```

The `Foo Bar.app` folder generated can be executed by a system running macOS, which will start the packaged Electron app. This is also true of the Windows x64 build on a system running a new enough version of Windows for a 64-bit system (via `Foo Bar-win32-x64/Foo Bar.exe`), and so on.

## Related

- [Electron Forge](https://github.com/electron/forge) - creates, builds, and distributes modern Electron applications
- [electron-packager-interactive](https://github.com/Urucas/electron-packager-interactive) - an interactive CLI for electron-packager
- [grunt-electron](https://github.com/sindresorhus/grunt-electron) - grunt plugin for electron-packager

### Distributable Creators

* [electron-installer-zip](https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-installer-zip) - creates symlink-compatible ZIP files

Windows:

* [electron-winstaller](https://github.com/electron/windows-installer) - Squirrel.Windows-based installer from the Electron maintainers group
* [electron-windows-store](https://github.com/felixrieseberg/electron-windows-store) - creates an AppX package for the Windows Store
* [electron-wix-msi](https://github.com/felixrieseberg/electron-wix-msi) - creates traditional MSI installers
* [electron-installer-windows](https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-installer-windows) - alternative Squirrel.Windows-based installer

macOS:

* [electron-installer-dmg](https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-installer-dmg) - creates a DMG

Linux:

* [electron-installer-debian](https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-installer-debian) - creates a DEB file
* [electron-installer-redhat](https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-installer-redhat) - creates an RPM
* [electron-installer-flatpak](https://github.com/endlessm/electron-installer-flatpak) - creates a Flatpak file
* [electron-installer-snap](https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-installer-snap) - creates a Snap file

### Plugins

These Node modules utilize Electron Packager API hooks:

- [electron-packager-languages](https://npm.im/electron-packager-languages) - sets the locales
  available to Electron when packaged, which is used by the Mac App Store, among other places
- [electron-packager-plugin-non-proprietary-codecs-ffmpeg](https://www.npmjs.com/package/electron-packager-plugin-non-proprietary-codecs-ffmpeg) - replaces the normal version of FFmpeg in Electron with a version without proprietary codecs
- [@electron/rebuild](https://github.com/electron/rebuild) - rebuilds native Node.js modules
  against the packaged Electron version
