A desktop app for downloading Omarchy, creating an installation USB, and installing alongside an existing operating system.
This is an unofficial community project. Installation features are still experimental and have not completed physical hardware and boot testing.
Download preview builds from Releases. Each platform has one portable download: Windows EXE, macOS APP ZIP (Intel or Apple Silicon), and Linux AppImage. On Mac, extract the ZIP and open the app; copying it to Applications is optional.
- Downloads official releases with resume support, SHA-256 checks and OpenPGP signature verification.
- Creates bootable x86 USB drives with readback verification on Windows, Linux and macOS. Keeping existing files requires Windows x64 and a compatible USB layout.
- Provides a Windows installation flow with space allocation, encryption and a boot menu. Direct installation requires administrator access and a local Docker runtime.
- Integrates a native Apple Silicon installer through a pinned upstream submodule. macOS builds require signed companion tools.
On Windows, the app runs from one portable executable. It keeps verified
application files in a local cache and uses the downloaded ISO in place.
After verification, it keeps the ISO read-only while the app is open so USB
creation and Windows installation can reuse that verification. Close the app
before moving or editing the ISO.
Completed operation receipts are saved in Omarchy-Setup-Records beside the
portable executable. If that location is unwritable or on the selected USB,
the app asks for another folder. Protected temporary workspaces are removed
after successful USB operations and verified record export. Unresolved operation
and direct-install recovery files remain under %ProgramData%\OmarchySetup\Operations.
Direct installation on Linux and Intel Macs is not implemented.
Linux and macOS offer the erase-and-write USB method. On Apple Silicon, this
creates media for another x86 computer. Operation records default to Documents
on these hosts. See the cross-platform USB implementation and test record
for platform prerequisites, exclusions and remaining hardware checks.
On Linux, make the AppImage executable and open it. It automatically relaunches
in extraction mode so the USB helper can read its bundled files. If FUSE is
unavailable, launch with --appimage-extract-and-run. Older previews require
that flag explicitly for USB preparation.
If an existing ISO has the wrong size or checksum, choose Download replacement or Choose another folder. Replacement keeps the old file until a verified new copy is ready, then replaces it atomically. Cancellation, failed downloads and changes to the existing file prevent replacement. Older version filenames are left untouched; they are not automatically deleted.
See the support matrix for testing status and platform behavior for installation requirements.
Development and physical testing status, grouped by the operating system running the app. Implementation details are listed in the support matrix above.
❌ In Development ·
| Host operating system | USB | No USB (direct installation) |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | ✅ Tested | 🟡 Tested, needs omarchy-iso#187 |
| macOS — Intel (x86_64) | ❌ In Development | |
| macOS — Apple Silicon (ARM64) | ❌ In Development | |
| Linux | ❌ In Development |
Windows USB testing covers erase-and-write preparation, full image readback and EFI boot-file verification on a physical USB drive. Booting and completing an installation, and the keep-existing-files method, remain untested.
Windows installation without USB was tested in a Hyper-V VM and on a physical laptop with BitLocker on: preparing, restarting into the installer, installing Omarchy beside Windows and removing the temporary installer. It needs an Omarchy ISO with omarchy-iso#187, because the official installer refuses a disk with any BitLocker volume, even a paused one.
macOS USB creation is implemented for Intel and Apple Silicon. Verification of the macOS packages passed in CI; physical USB testing remains pending. Apple Silicon hosts create installation media for another compatible x86 computer.
The goal is a cross-platform Omarchy installer that runs on Windows, Linux and macOS. On Apple Silicon Macs, it will reuse the installation backend from Omarchy MX Mac through the same interface. Completing and testing that integration, and adding direct installation from Linux, are planned next steps. See the design for installing without USB from Linux and Intel Macs.
Other planned improvements:
- Boot the downloaded ISO in place: evaluate reading the existing ISO from the Windows partition instead of copying its contents to a temporary source partition. Keep the current staging approach while investigating the boot, BitLocker and disk-layout tradeoffs.
- Consider copying the installer into memory: decide whether it is worth
booting the staged installer with
copytoram=yon machines with enough RAM. The live system would then stop using the internal disk, so an official ISO without same-disk support could install there. It needs memory for the whole image (about 5.5 GiB) plus the installer, and adds a second staging path to test; machines with less RAM would keep the current approach. - Consider installer-side cleanup of the temporary installer: cleanup of the temporary partition holding the installer files, the temporary EFI partition and its firmware boot entry currently runs from Windows, so replacing Windows leaves all three behind. If this installation method gains upstream acceptance, consider proposing that the installed system remove them after its first successful boot.
- Reclaim space after direct installation: let users optionally remove the original OS and its partitions, leaving the space unallocated or using it to expand Omarchy's home storage.
- Choose what starts by default: once Omarchy is installed next to Windows, show which system starts by default and let users switch it by reordering the firmware's boot order. Also offer a one-time restart into the other system, so nobody needs the boot menu key. The app already writes firmware boot entries for the temporary installer, and BitLocker's default TPM checks don't include the boot order. Later, let users show or hide the OS selection menu and set the countdown for direct installation. Check what Omarchy MX Mac currently supports.
- Remove Omarchy and return to Windows: a reviewed action, like preparing, that deletes Omarchy's partitions and firmware boot entry, makes Windows the default again and extends C: over the freed space. It would only delete partitions entirely inside the space the app set aside for Omarchy, refuse when the layout differs from what it recorded, and show manual steps for installations it didn't make. The design depends on whether Omarchy's installer creates its own EFI partition or uses Windows' one.
- Resize non-native partitions: investigate resizing ext4/Btrfs partitions from Windows or macOS, APFS partitions from Windows or Linux, and other combinations of host operating systems and filesystems.
- Integrate Try Omarchy: let users try Omarchy in a virtual machine from within the app before installing.
- Reduce installer size: prune unused SDK features and dependencies, exclude binaries for other architectures, and bundle JavaScript into fewer files. Compare native libraries and existing engines with retaining Etcher or implementing a focused Rust writer. See the USB engine and packaging options for candidates, size estimates, maintenance tradeoffs and remaining checks.
Useful upstream support would be official prebuilt system images with Omarchy already installed, so direct installation would not require us to build and maintain our own images. Ideally, these would ship unencrypted for efficient compression, with native setup support to encrypt each installation with a fresh, unique key.
Secure Boot support in Omarchy, as planned upstream in omarchy-iso's
plans/consumer-secure-boot.md, would remove the Secure Boot step and the
Windows PIN reset it causes, except on PCs that don't trust Microsoft's
third-party certificate. BitLocker handling would still be needed.
Omarchy's boot menu could also list Windows automatically after a dual-boot
installation. Today users add it manually with limine-scan or use the
computer's boot menu (omarchy#7867).
Omarchy already enables automatic bootloader discovery in
limine-entry-tool, but it only
searches Limine's own EFI partition, not the separate Windows one. With
BitLocker on, that entry should hand over to the firmware's Windows Boot
Manager (Limine's efi_boot_entry) rather than chainload it. Otherwise each
Limine update asks for the recovery key; see
starting Windows after a staged install.
CI builds preview packages for Windows, Linux, and macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon). Version tags publish a GitHub Release after full CI and all platform builds pass. See release builds for downloads, package formats and signing status.
The next application version is recorded in VERSION, with release notes in CHANGELOG.md. Use the documented version preparation command to keep desktop metadata consistent. Documentation-only CI runs lightweight checks.
Use Rust 1.93, Node.js 22 or 24, pnpm 10.2.1, and the
Tauri prerequisites for your platform.
Clone with submodules, or run git submodule update --init --recursive.
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
npm --prefix providers/media-etcher ci
pnpm providers:stage
pnpm desktop:nativeRun the main checks with:
cargo test --workspace --all-features --locked
pnpm desktop:check
pnpm desktop:test
pnpm desktop:test:native
pnpm media:testSee desktop development and packaging for build instructions, CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines, and SECURITY.md for reporting vulnerabilities.
Original project code is available under the MIT license, the same license used by Omarchy. Dependencies and included third-party components retain their own licenses; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
The Omarchy name and artwork belong to their respective owners. This project is not an official Omacom Foundation release.