Notarize your Electron apps seamlessly for macOS
# npm
npm install @electron/notarize --save-dev
# yarn
yarn add @electron/notarize --dev
From Apple's docs in XCode:
A notarized app is a macOS app that was uploaded to Apple for processing before it was distributed. When you export a notarized app from Xcode, it code signs the app with a Developer ID certificate and staples a ticket from Apple to the app. The ticket confirms that you previously uploaded the app to Apple.
On macOS 10.14 and later, the user can launch notarized apps when Gatekeeper is enabled. When the user first launches a notarized app, Gatekeeper looks for the app’s ticket online. If the user is offline, Gatekeeper looks for the ticket that was stapled to the app.
Apple has made this a hard requirement as of 10.15 (Catalina).
For notarization, you need the following things:
- Xcode 10 or later installed on your Mac.
- An Apple Developer account.
- An app-specific password for your ADC account’s Apple ID.
- Your app may need to be signed with
hardened-runtime
, including the following entitlement:com.apple.security.cs.allow-jit
If you are using Electron 11 or below, you must add the com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory
entitlement too.
When using version 12+, this entitlement should not be applied as it increases your app's attack surface.
options
Objecttool
String - The notarization tool to use, default isnotarytool
. Can belegacy
ornotarytool
.notarytool
is substantially (10x) faster andlegacy
is deprecated and will stop working on November 1st 2023.appPath
String - The absolute path to your.app
file- There are different options for each tool: Notarytool
- There are three authentication methods available: user name with password:
appleId
String - The username of your apple developer accountappleIdPassword
String - The app-specific password (not your Apple ID password).teamId
String - The team ID you want to notarize under.
- ... or apiKey with apiIssuer:
appleApiKey
String - Required for JWT authentication. See Note on JWT authentication below.appleApiKeyId
String - Required for JWT authentication. See Note on JWT authentication below.appleApiIssuer
String - Issuer ID. Required ifappleApiKey
is specified.
- ... or keychain with keychainProfile:
keychain
String - The name of the keychain or path to the keychain you stored notarization credentials in.keychainProfile
String - The name of the profile you provided when storing notarization credentials.
- There are three authentication methods available: user name with password:
- ... or Legacy
appBundleId
String - The app bundle identifier your Electron app is using. E.g.com.github.electron
ascProvider
String (optional) - Your Team Short Name.- There are two authentication methods available: user name with password:
appleId
String - The username of your apple developer accountappleIdPassword
String - The app-specific password (not your Apple ID password).
- ... or apiKey with apiIssuer:
appleApiKey
String - Required for JWT authentication. See Note on JWT authentication below.appleApiIssuer
String - Issuer ID. Required ifappleApiKey
is specified.
- Never hard code your password into your packaging scripts, use an environment variable at a minimum.
- It is possible to provide a keychain reference instead of your actual password (assuming that you have already logged into the Application Loader from Xcode). For example:
const password = `@keychain:"Application Loader: ${appleId}"`;
Another option is that you can add a new keychain item using either the Keychain Access app or from the command line using the security
utility:
security add-generic-password -a "AC_USERNAME" -w <app_specific_password> -s "AC_PASSWORD"
where AC_USERNAME
should be replaced with your Apple ID, and then in your code you can use:
const password = `@keychain:AC_PASSWORD`;
You can obtain an API key from Appstore Connect. Create a key with App Manager access. Note down the Issuer ID and download the .p8
file. This file is your API key and comes with the name of AuthKey_<api_key>.p8
. This is the string you have to supply when calling notarize
.
Based on the ApiKey
, altool
will look in the following places for that file:
./private_keys
~/private_keys
~/.private_keys
~/.appstoreconnect/private_keys
If you are a member of multiple teams or organizations, you have to tell Apple on behalf of which organization you're uploading. To find your team's short name), you can ask iTMSTransporter
, which is part of the now deprecated Application Loader
as well as the newer Transporter
.
With Transporter
installed, run:
/Applications/Transporter.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter -m provider -u APPLE_DEV_ACCOUNT -p APP_PASSWORD
Alternatively, with older versions of Xcode, run:
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter -m provider -u APPLE_DEV_ACCOUNT -p APP_PASSWORD
If you use the new Notary Tool method you will need to set the teamId
option. To get this ID, go to your Apple Developer Account, then clikc on "Membership details", and there you will find your Team ID. This link should get you there directly: https://developer.apple.com/account#MembershipDetailsCard
import { notarize } from '@electron/notarize';
async function packageTask () {
// Package your app here, and code sign with hardened runtime
await notarize({
appBundleId,
appPath,
appleId,
appleIdPassword,
ascProvider, // This parameter is optional
});
}