AppImageLauncher makes your Linux desktop AppImage ready™. By installing it, you won't have to worry about AppImages again. Due to its simple yet efficient integration, you’ll be able to run AppImages without making them executable first, add them to your application menus with a single click, easily update or remove AppImages, and it won’t interfere with other AppImage managers or app stores.
Never before has managing AppImages been so easy. Install AppImageLauncher today for your Linux distribution and enjoy using AppImages with ease.
The core feature of AppImageLauncher is the so-called desktop integration. AppImageLauncher allows you to integrate AppImages you download into your application menu or launcher to make it easier for you to launch them. It also takes care of moving them into a central location, where you can find them later if you need access to them again. Furthermore, it sets up the update and removal entries in the launcher for you.
AppImageLauncher provides a simple to use update mechanism. After desktop integration, the context menu of the AppImage's entry in the application launcher, will have an entry for updating, that launches a little helper tool that uses AppImageUpdate internally. Just click the entry and have the tool search and apply updates.
Removing integrated AppImages is pretty simple too. Similar to updating AppImages, you'll find an entry in the context menu in the application launcher that triggers a removal tool. You will be asked to confirm the removal. If you choose to do so, the desktop integration is undone, and the file is removed from your system.
Starting with version 1.4.0, there's an edition of AppImageLauncher called Lite. AppImageLauncher Lite is pretty much the best of AppImageLauncher you can get without having root access to your computer. AppImageLauncher Lite is shipped as an AppImage that can be installed by a user from the command line, e.g. by calling ./appimagelauncher-lite...AppImage install. The AppImage integrates itself in the users' home directory then.
Please note that AppImageLauncher Lite is relatively new and isn't as well tested as the regular packages. Also it is highly recommended to go with the traditional packages if possible, as they provide many more features and provide a much better overall experience.
Before AppImageLauncher, AppImages and Linux desktops were two things that didn't integrate very well. Because that integration couldn’t be provided by the AppImages themselves, distributors later tried to fix that issue by providing desktop integration scripts with the AppImage. The decentralized nature of all these varied post-install scripts that managed integration, cleanup, and removal of AppImages, was not ideal for a lot of users.
The oldest available solution is appimaged, a daemon, which performs everything in the background, without notifying the user in any way. It scans a predefined set of directories including ~/Downloads and ~/.bin, and then performs desktop integration with AppImages that were found to be executable. This is rather inefficient as appimaged's operations and monitoring, produce a lot of file I/O. Also, many users don't like the lack of control.
Since then, AppImageLauncher was developed. It is a newer, elegant system-side solution for native AppImage support. Being a launcher for AppImages, AppImageLauncher can control how the system treats AppImages; it integrates deeply in the system and intercepts all attempts to open an AppImage, becoming the first instance to handle all AppImage invocations. With the launcher, the executable AppImage issue was simplified, AppImages became easily accessible from the application menus/launchers, plus updating and removing AppImages became hassle free.
A few articles have been written about AppImageLauncher already:
- https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/04/easily-run-and-integrate-appimage-files.html (English)
- https://www.freeyourdesktop.com/2018/07/install-manage-appimages-with-appimagelauncher/ (English)
- same article also available here: https://medium.com/@freeyourdesktopblog/install-manage-appimages-with-appimagelauncher-2a2078c55f37
- http://linux-os.net/appimagelauncher-ejecuta-e-integra-facilmente-aplicaciones-en-appimage/ (Spanish)
- same article also available here: https://blog.desdelinux.net/appimagelauncher-ejecuta-e-integra-facilmente-aplicaciones-en-appimage/
- http://www.edivaldobrito.com.br/integrador-appimagelauncher-no-linux/ (Portuguese)
- https://404.g-net.pl/2018/08/appimagelauncher/ (Polish)
- https://linuxmint.hu/blog/2018/12/appimage (Hungarian)
- https://www.freeyourdesktop.com/2018/07/install-manage-appimages-with-appimagelauncher/ (English)
- please note that AppImageLauncher could not be "installed" via AppImage at that time, only recently we added a Lite version that now can be installed from an AppImage (more information will follow soon!)
- https://forum.pardus.org.tr/t/appimagelauncher-tek-tiklama-ile-appimage-sisteminizle-butunlestiriniz/11275 (Turkish)
AppImageLauncher is supposed to integrate deeply in the systems. Therefore, an installation via native system packages is the preferred way to install AppImageLauncher. This way, AppImageLauncher's package can perform the necessary steps to have your system use it for all AppImage invocations.
Compatibility table (likely incomplete, please feel free to send PRs to add distributions)
| Release filename | Build system | Compatible distributions (incomplete) |
|---|---|---|
appimagelauncher-<version>.xenial_(amd64,i386).deb |
Ubuntu xenial | Ubuntu xenial (16.04), Debian stretch (9), Netrunner 17.01 |
appimagelauncher-<version>.bionic_(amd64,i386).deb |
Ubuntu bionic | Ubuntu bionic (18.04), Ubuntu disco (19.04), Ubuntu eoan (19.10) and newer, Debian buster (1) and newer, Netrunner 19.01, 19.08 and newer |
appimagelauncher-<version>.disco_(amd64,i386).deb |
||
appimagelauncher-<version>.eoan_(amd64,i386).deb |
||
appimagelauncher-<version>.buster_(amd64,i386).deb |
||
appimagelauncher-<version>.(i386,x86_64).rpm |
Ubuntu xenial | openSUSE Leap 42 and newer, possibly openSUSE Tumbleweed, SUSE Enterprise Linux, RHEL 7, CentOS 7 |
- Ubuntu trusty (14.04) and newer
- Important: Ubuntu bionic (and newer) broke with the backwards compatibility of its
libcurlpackages, therefore users of these systems need to install the specialbionicpackage
- Important: Ubuntu bionic (and newer) broke with the backwards compatibility of its
- Debian stable (jessie, 8) and newer
- Netrunner 17 and newer
- openSUSE Leap 42 and newer
- openSUSE Tumbleweed
The installation of packages on systems with a set of packages similar to one of the listed ones (e.g., Linux Mint, Fedora, etc.) should work as well.
Manjaro and Netrunner Rolling users can install AppImageLauncher with a distribution-provided package called appimagelauncher.
Arch Linux, Manjaro, and Netrunner Rolling users can use AUR to install AppImageLauncher by installing appimagelauncher-git (thanks @NuLogicSystems for setting up the build).
Other systems derived from the listed ones, such as for instance Linux Mint (Ubuntu), should support AppImageLauncher as well. If they don't, please don't hesitate to create an issue on GitHub.
Note: If your system is not listed above as supported, please feel free to request support in an issue on GitHub. We can then discuss adding support.
AppImageLauncher is responsible for the desktop integration. When the user launches an AppImage, the software checks whether the AppImage has been integrated already. If not, it displays a dialog prompting the user whether to run the AppImage once, or move it to a predefined location and adding it to the application menus, launchers, etc.
Details about how AppImageLauncher registers itself in the system can be found on this Wiki page.