How to get the original path of a portable Electron app?

Admin 1
Viewed 22578

I have an Portable Electron App (packed with: electron-builder + asar, portable build) on Windows. I try to get the application path but it returns a path within the user\temp folder rather than the actual '.exe' file

Is there any way to get the original app.exe path?

I've tried the following:

  • app.getAppPath()
  • __dirname
  • require.main.filename
  • app-root-path
  • and a few node modules

The path I'm getting from my tests:

C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Temp\xxxxxx.tmp\app

the actual .exe Path (where the app launched from, and what i need):

C:\Users\XXX\Documents\test\dist

I'm just starting with Electron.

electron portable-applications
7 Answers

I found a solution: Use the Environment Variable (created by Electron-Builder)

process.env.PORTABLE_EXECUTABLE_DIR

to show the real Path of the App.exe. Works only packed with Electron-Builder

Admin1

From the main process:

// If not already defined...
const { app } = require ('electron');
const path = require ('path');

let execPath;

execPath = path.dirname (app.getPath ('exe'));
// or
execPath = path.dirname (process.execPath);

From a renderer process:

// If not already defined...
const { remote } = require ('electron');
const path = require ('path');

let execPath;

execPath = path.dirname (remote.app.getPath ('exe'));
// or
execPath = path.dirname (remote.process.execPath);
Admin1

I had a lot of trouble with this and was finally able to solve the issue by replacing __dirname by '.', see working example below :

const path = require('path')
const myAppPath = path.resolve('.', 'myapp.exe');
user_31611390

Seems like PORTABLE_EXECUTABLE_FILE only works under certain Electron-Builder configurations; In particular, it won't work in apps deployed as a portable directory.

In such cases, the following will get you the application root path:

const path = require('path')
import { app } from 'electron'

let rootDir = app.getAppPath()
let last = path.basename(rootDir)
if (last == 'app.asar') {
    rootDir = Path.dirname(app.getPath('exe'))
}
user_1656060

None of the above answers worked for me on Windows 10.

process.env.PORTABLE_EXECUTABLE_DIR returns the Temp directory path.

I got it to work using:

process.env.INIT_CWD
user_20758590 
process.env.PORTABLE_EXECUTABLE_FILE

will give you the full path to the file.

user_17691280

As none of the methods above worked and I don't want to use an external lib for this, i tried following:

        if (!fs.existsSync("../images")) {
            fs.mkdirSync("./../images");            
        }
        return path.resolve("./../images/") + "/";

You can use any directory that should exist at the top level or anywhere else. In my case I know that one level higher in the directory there must be a directory called "images".

This solution worked in my case for DEV build and prod (packaged).

Are there any drawbacks when using this approach?

user_98099500
Related