Installation

Loach ships as a native desktop app for Windows, Linux and macOS. Install from a pre-built package, or build from source.

Windows Linux macOS MIT licensed

Install from a pre-built package

With every stable release the project publishes ready-to-install packages for each supported operating system:

• Windows — .exe (NSIS installer)
• Linux — .deb, .rpm and .AppImage
• macOS — .dmg (Apple Silicon only)

Head over to the GitHub releases page and download the file that matches your platform.

Download the latest release →

Windows

1. Download the .exe from the latest release.
2. Run the installer and follow the prompts.
3. Launch Loach from the Start menu.

WebView2 is required and is pre-installed on Windows 11. On Windows 10 the installer will pull it in if it's missing.

Linux

Pick the package format for your distribution:

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install ./loach_*.deb

# Fedora / RHEL
sudo dnf install ./loach-*.rpm

# Any distro
chmod +x Loach-*.AppImage
./Loach-*.AppImage

macOS

1. Download the .dmg from the latest release.
2. Open it and drag Loach into Applications.
3. The first time you launch Loach, macOS will show a Gatekeeper warning because the build is not Apple-notarized. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom and click Open Anyway. You only have to do this once.

Only Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4) is supported. Intel Macs are not.

Build from source

If you want the bleeding edge or you're contributing patches, build from the repository.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20.19+ (or 22.12+) and npm — Vite 7 won't run on older 20.x point releases.
• Rust stable toolchain via rustup.
• Platform build tooling — see the official Tauri prerequisites guide.
  • Windows: Microsoft Visual Studio Build Tools, WebView2 runtime (pre-installed on Windows 11).
  • Linux: webkit2gtk-4.1, libayatana-appindicator3-dev, librsvg2-dev, build-essential, libssl-dev, pkg-config, libsecret-1-dev.
  • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install). Apple Silicon only.

Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/ztcs-software/loach.git
cd loach
npm install

Run in development

npm run tauri dev

The Vite dev server runs on http://localhost:1420 and the Tauri shell embeds it.

Build production installers

npm run tauri build

Outputs land in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/:

• Windows: .exe (NSIS)
• Linux: .deb, .rpm and .AppImage
• macOS: .dmg and a .app.tar.gz bundle for the in-app updater (Apple Silicon)

Updates

We regularly update Loach to deliver new features, bug fixes, security improvements, and performance gains. When a new version is available, you can apply it directly from the app in Settings → Updates. See OTA updates for details.