DMG

Generate a DMG with Electron Forge to distribute your Electron app on macOS.

The DMG target builds Apple Disk Image (.dmg) files, which are the standard format for sharing macOS apps. The DMG acts like a ZIP file, but provides an easy way for users to take the app and put it in the /Applications directory.

Static file auto-updates with DMG distributions

The Squirrel.Mac implementation behind Electron's autoUpdater module on macOS supports static file auto-updates from the ZIP artifacts uploaded to your cloud storage Publishers.

If you want to distribute a DMG that supports static file auto-updates, make sure to also make a ZIP target and follow the Auto updating from S3 instructions to configure updates.

Requirements

You can only build the DMG target on macOS machines.

Installation

npm install --save-dev @electron-forge/maker-dmg

Usage

To use @electron-forge/maker-dmg, add it to the makers array in your Forge configuration:

forge.config.js

module.exports = {
  makers: [
    {
      name: '@electron-forge/maker-dmg',
      config: {
        background: './assets/dmg-background.png',
        format: 'ULFO'
      }
    }
  ]
};

Configuration options are documented in MakerDMGConfig.

Debugging

For advanced debug logging for this maker, add the DEBUG=electron-installer-dmg* environment variable.