appimg — AppImage Manager

appimg is a lightweight command-line utility for managing AppImage files on Linux. It scans for AppImage files, organizes them into a consistent directory layout, and automatically generates .desktop launchers.

Table of Contents

1. Features
2. Installation
3. Commands
4. Requirements
5. NixOS-specific note
6. Documentation
7. License
8. Contributing

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Features

• Scan directories for .AppImage files
• Organize AppImages into ~/.appimages/
• Detect and use bundled icons, or fall back to a placeholder
• Generate .desktop launchers and symlink them to the user applications directory
• Dmenu support, Automatically symlinks AppImages to ~/.local/bin for quick access via other launchers like dmenu
• One-shot full setup with appimg setup-all
• No external dependencies beyond standard GNU/Linux command-line tools (see nixos)

demo.webm

Installation

Via curl (Recommended for quick install)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pmnzt/appimage-manager/main/install/curl.sh | bash

This command downloads the curl.sh script and pipes it directly to bash for execution, installing appimg to /usr/local/bin and setting up its man page and necessary directories.

Via git

git clone https://github.com/pmnzt/appimage-manager.git
cd appimage-manager
./install/install.sh

This will install appimg from your local clone.

Commands

appimg ls

Lists discovered AppImage files.

• Usage:

appimg ls
appimg ls -s /path/to/search

• Options:

• -s DIR: Specify a directory to search (default: $HOME).

• Output: Prints each found AppImage with its full path.

appimg move

Moves AppImage files into the managed directory (~/.appimages).

• Usage:

appimg move --all
appimg move myfile.AppImage
appimg move -s ~/Downloads --all

• Options:
• -s DIR: Search directory.
• --all: Move all found AppImages.

appimg update

Generates or updates .desktop launchers for AppImages in the managed directory.

• Usage:

appimg update [APPNAME]

• Options:
• [APPNAME]: Update a specific app.

appimg setup-all

A convenience command that runs appimg move --all followed by appimg update.

• Usage:

appimg setup-all

appimg reset

Resets the managed AppImage state by moving AppImages to a temporary directory and unregistering them.

• Usage:

appimg reset

appimg open

Interactively select and launch an AppImage from the managed directory (~/.appimages/managed).

• Usage:

appimg open

• Behavior:
• Shows a terminal menu; navigate with arrow keys.
• Press Enter to launch the selected AppImage.

Requirements

• Bash
• Standard GNU/Linux utilities (find, mv, ln, etc.) (see nixos)

NixOS-specific note

On NixOS, the filesystem layout is non-FHS (non-typical Linux hierarchy), so some AppImages require the appimage-run package to execute properly.

You can include it in your system configuration like this:

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  appimage-run
];

This ensures AppImages run correctly without extra manual steps.

Documentation

For detailed information on appimg commands, options, and usage, consult the man page:

man appimg

License

MIT License Copyright © 2025

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and suggestions are welcome. Please open a pull request or issue on the project repository.