I have downloaded an AppImage (Balena Etcher). It works fine and I want to add it to the 'Show Applications' menu so that I don't have to navigate to its folder each time I want to use it. I have tried right-clicking both the file and icon in the dock but I can't find an option to do it. Is this possible?
2 Answers
For a solid and extensive answer read this: https://askubuntu.com/a/112812/1024353, for a minimal working example, continue reading.
Besides the Exec
, you should also add a Name
and Type
field to your .destop
file. These fields are required by the desktop entry spec.
So your minimal .desktop
file could look like this:
Exec=/path/to/AppImage
Name=AppImageLauncher
Type=Application
I'll assume from this point that you named your file myappimage.desktop
and placed it in ~/.local/share/applications/
.
Note that putting this .desktop
file in ~/.local/share/applications/
is probably more appropriate than in /usr/share/applications
in this case, because you won't require root access.
Now make it executable:
chmod 700 ~/.local/share/applications/myappimage.desktop
I did not have to re-login to make it show up in the menu, but your milage may vary.
Hope this helps.
-
This does the job, but unfortunately it does not display the icon. All apps are displayed with gray system gear icon.– igorSep 15, 2022 at 17:09
Create a desktop entry with the Exec
parameter as follows:
Exec=/path/to/AppImage
Save the file with a .desktop
extension, and make it executable like so:
sudo chmod u+x /path/to/MyApp.desktop
Then just copy/move this desktop file to the /usr/share/applications
folder, perhaps through the terminal like so:
sudo mv /path/to/MyApp.desktop /usr/share/applications
Logout and login again to your desktop environment if needed and you'll now see the app in the Applications menu.
Note, however, that this app will not show up in the Open with Application
context menu list (at least doesn't on Arch Linux).