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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?

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2 Answers 2

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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.

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  • This does the job, but unfortunately it does not display the icon. All apps are displayed with gray system gear icon.
    – igor
    Sep 15, 2022 at 17:09
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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).

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