yarn add --dev electron-builder

The postinstall script will execute after every yarn install and makes sure that native dependencies match your app’s version of Electron. The build script can be used to package your app for all specified platforms. The release script builds the app and publishes it on your download server.

You can also specify configuration parameters for electron-builder in your package.json file under the "build" key. I recommend the following options:

See here for a list of possible Mac app categories and here for the available Linux categories.

Finally, create a folder named build in your project’s root directory and copy your app icon (named icon.png ) into it. If you don’t add this file, the default Electron icon will be used.

You can now run yarn build and your app should get packaged for the platforms you specified earlier. You can find the output in the dist directory (which you should add to your .gitignore ).

It’s important to know that, by default, electron-builder will include all dependencies from your package.json file in the app package, whereas development dependencies are ignored. To keep your app size small, you need to specify dependencies as devDependencies if your app doesn’t use them in production. If you’re using a module bundler like Webpack, you should either mark the bundled dependencies as devDependencies (to avoid having them in your package twice) or configure electron-builder to skip these dependencies (using the "files" configuration key).

Auto Update

electron-builder comes with built-in support for electron-updater , which checks your download server for new app versions every time the app is launched. If a more recent version exists, it’s automatically downloaded in the background and installed after the user closes the app.

To use electron-updater in your project, run the following command:

yarn add electron-updater

Add the following code to your main process:

const autoUpdater = require("electron-updater");
app.on("ready", () => {
	autoUpdater.checkForUpdatesAndNotify();

If you’re using GitHub Releases for distributing your app (explained later in this guide), that’s all the configuration you need for the auto-updater to work!

Code Signing

For auto-updating to work on macOS, your code needs to be signed:

Code signing of Windows apps is optional. If you choose not to sign your app, your users will be presented with a warning when installing your app.

Release

Manual Release

electron-builder supports various platforms for storing your app. By default, GitHub Releases will be used to store the files. To be able to publish on GitHub, generate a Personal Access Token for electron-builder .

Whenever you want to publish a new version of your app, do the following:

That’s it! Your Electron app is now ready to be downloaded from its GitHub page. If you additionally want to publish your app on the Mac App Store, see this follow-up post .

Using GitHub Actions

Instead of building and releasing the app manually, you can also use GitHub Actions to do this task for you. You can read more about this process in my other blog post .