[docs] macOS app store info

[despreston]

I wanted to publish my app to the macOS app store and couldn't find any info about this in the docs. I was told on Discord that it's currently not possible. This seems like a commonly asked question based on the 10-20mins I spent poking around Discord history. I'm not sure if this is something thats on the roadmap, but regardless IMO it would be nice to include a blurb in the docs to mention that submitting to the mac app store is not supported.

Apologies if this is the wrong section or issue topic. Im kind of perplexed as to how there is so little info on this online and I'm not sure who to talk to about getting this feature added.

Regards

[lorenzolewis]

Would be good to put a longer explanation in the FAQ and then make sure we link to that in the respective macOS guides

[despreston]

I think that makes sense. 👍

[klausbreyer]

Can maybe link somebody those guides here? I found this through Google. I am new to desktop development, but have a lot of experience in the web.
For me the reason to chose tauri or electron is dependent on the ease of having a workflow that produces something that I can directly submit to the Mac or windows App Store.

[ZaneH]

Here's the link to the docs: https://tauri.app/v1/guides/distribution/macos/
Another helpful link: https://tauri.app/v1/api/config/#macconfig
You'll also need: https://tauri.app/v1/guides/distribution/sign-macos

[despreston]

Hi, @ZaneH. Looks like those links dont address the issue. Namely, I think the project needs to convey that it's not possible to publish the app to the app store.

[kirankunigiri]

I just landed here while google searching to see if it was possible to publish a Tauri app to the app store. I 100% agree with @despreston that it should be written very clearly in the docs, at the very least on the distribution page, because I couldn't find this info anywhere else besides this GitHub issue.

I originally started my Tauri project assuming it was possible (lack of forethought on my part), but unfortunately I have to shift to Electron because of the lack of App Store publishing. Being able to publish to the App Store is probably a pretty important factor for a lot of developers when choosing between Tauri/Electron/other frameworks, so I think it is important to mention this somewhere in documentation.

But I do have to say I really liked Tauri better than Electron due to the low build size and simplicity, and I hope App Store publishing becomes a possibility in the future!

[buildnewapp]

OMG，tauri app cannot be released to mac app store !!!

[FabianLars]

To be clear, it is possible to publish Tauri apps to the macOS app store. I heard of at least 3 Tauri apps that were already published there (don't know the app names, only the devs).
What is indeed true is that Tauri doesn't streamline this process and doesn't even output the expected file format. We plan to add both docs and better tooling for this as soon as we can (we don't have an app we can publish yet tho).
Until then, to my knowledge, all you need to convert your app to the needed .pkg format is a cli tool included in xcode. If i got that right it was something like this

sudo productbuild --component /path_to_app/appname.app /output_folder/Converted.pkg

I think it needs to be signed again after converting it, but i don't know how that's done manually right now.

Edit: Here's a tutorial on the conversion + signing part: https://www.miradore.com/knowledge/macos/converting-dmg-to-pkg-for-macos-application-deployment/

[Zertz]

I haven't had the chance to give a try yet but that comment by @ryan-bunkr seems very helpful!