How to create a desktop or menu item for an appimage program in Ubuntu

19 May

2020

Johan van de Merwe

This quick and easy howto post shows how to create a menu or desktop item for `AppImage` applications in Ubuntu.

We assume the following for this example.

Location of the AppImage file: ~/apps/navicat/
Name of the AppImage file: navicat15-mysql-en.AppImage
Icon: ~/apps/app-icons/navicat.png

Create a new file in the folder ~/.local/share/applications named navicat.desktop. You can do from the Nautilus Filemanager or whatever filemanager you are using. Sudo is not required.

Useful Tip

When you can't create it with the right-mouse click menu, just copy another one, rename it and edit from there with your favorite editor

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Navicat
Comment=Navicat MySQL Database Manager
Exec=/home/yourhome/apps/navicat/navicat15-mysql-en.AppImage
Icon=/home/yourhome/apps/app-icons/navicat.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development

That is all there is. The folder ~/.local/share/applications is watched automatically and when using the menu application Alacarte you see that after saving this file it is automatically updated.

with the following content:

and now you can search for it as well:

Google for the icon

Unfortunatel I haven't figured out on how to extract the icon from the AppImage file, but simply google to find the icon is not that much of a hassle. I have put the icons in a seperate folder, just to make sure that the icon doesn't disappear when I unintended delete the folder containing the program itself.

Johan van de Merwe

Working in IT since 1985. Started as COBOL and RPG/LE software developer. This was followed by a carrier as IT manager for several international operating companies. Started own business with Enovision in 2007. Since dedicated to internet software development on both server and frontend. Advises companies on developing successful internet strategies.

5 Comments

codeiaks

5 months ago

**Unfortunatel I haven't figured out on how to extract the icon from the AppImage file**
Hi there, turns out if you make a copy of the AppImage file and change the extension to .zip, then you can access other things in that folder, such as, icon file, .desktop and much more depending on the AppImage folder. Cheers

Marcus V Voltolim

4 months ago

Thanks! It's works.

Marcus V Voltolim

4 months ago

Thanks! It's works.

Rene

1 month ago

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Problem: I've got several AppImages with changing names, because of development and versioning. How to address that? Can i set wildcards?

Jay

20 hours ago

Thank you, this works like a charm. Used it to make one for Jubler.

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