Hello AppImage users! If you like AppImage so much you have many AppImage apps, and you wonder how to upgrade them, here comes AppImageUpdate for you. Running AppImage apps is easy, and updating them is easy too thanks to this program. This small program works to update AppImages you have easily just by selecting the file and go. Update process is also easy and efficient, it automates the download in diff size (also known as "delta"), not starting it from zero percent. Complete your happiness in GNU/Linux with it. This tutorial explains with pictures and an example to do it. Enjoy!
Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates directly.
1. Download the AppImageUpdate
Download it either for 32-bit or 64-bit on AppImageUpdate GitHub. You should get a .appimage formatted file in ~20MB. This is the program to update AppImages.
 |
| Where to download the updater |
2. Run AppImageUpdate
Double-click the AppImageUpdate program. It will run a dialog to choose file.
 |
| File chooser dialog of AppImageUpdate |
3. Select Your Old AppImage
This tutorial updates SubSurface 4.8.0 to 4.8.1 as example. Download the 4.8.0 version here.
In the file chooser dialog, choose the old AppImage you wish to update. In this example, choose the SubSurface version 4.8.0 .appimage file.
 |
| Select the AppImage file you want to upgrade |
4. Let It Downloads the Update
AppImageUpdate will download only the diff and not start downloading from 0%. Make sure your internet access is up while updating. In this example, I only download the diff of 30MB instead of the whole 80MB (I start from 40%, not 0%). This clever feature comes from zsync technology used behind.
 |
| The upgrading process of an AppImage |
Finish
Run the program. You will notice the versions before and after are different. For example, here I updated SubSurface from 4.8 into 4.8.1.
Before:
 |
| Previously it's 4.8.0 |
After:
 |
| Now it's upgraded to 4.8.1 |
That's all. How easy to use and update AppImages, no? Enjoy!
About AppImage
AppImage is a way to package a software (for developer) and to install it (for user) in one-file-per-one-app way that is universal for all GNU/Linux distros. With this, a software can be made available in its website for Windows and Mac and GNU/Linux in their respective formats of .exe, .dmg, and .appimage. To run an AppImage formatted software is the same as EXE and DMG, just let it be executable and double-click it! Nowadays, hundreds of GNU/Linux popular programs has already released as AppImages such as LibreOffice, GIMP, Inkscape, QCAD, and more; so people can just download the .appimage file and run it on GNU/Linux even in the LiveCD session.
This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.