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

Question

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\\t

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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');

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

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'))
}

Answer 5

process.env.PORTABLE_EXECUTABLE_FILE

will give you the full path to the file.

Answer 6

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);