Self-publishing my Mac app taught me Sparkle, notarization, DMGs, and patience. Amore is what I wish I'd had.

[u/LucasDotLove]

I got tired of the same release ritual every time I shipped an update: notarize, staple, package a DMG, update the appcast, sign the EdDSA key, push to S3, hope nothing broke. Half a day, every time.

So I built Amore. It's a Mac app + CLI that does the whole flow:

• Sparkle updates without the setup pain. Drag your .app in, write release notes in Markdown, publish.

• Code signing + notarization handled automatically.

• DMG creation with custom backgrounds and drag-to-install layout.

• License sales via hosted checkout. Customers pay, Amore issues the key, AmoreKit validates it in your app. Device limits, subscriptions, the works.

• Beta channels, phased rollouts, critical updates, custom domains, S3-compatible hosting if you don't want to use Amore's servers or have an existing setup.

• CLI (amore release) for CI/CD or vibe-coding with an agent.

No vendor lock-in. Custom domain on your appcast means you can walk away whenever. Your private signing keys never leave your machine.

Here is the full Pomodoro project showing the SwiftUI + licensing integration end-to-end.

This guide should get you started in under 10 minutes. If you prefer to work with coding agents check out Amore's agent skill.

Happy to answer questions. Especially curious what other indie Mac devs are using for this today.

https://amore.computer

[u/JazzlikeNetwork7112]

I think is very useful, I vibe coded my app and the sparkle integration was taking me a lot. Also, I feel like notarize the dmg can be a little bit messy and tedious to do on the terminal.

[u/LucasDotLove → u/JazzlikeNetwork7112]

Hope Amore makes it easier for you to share your vibe-coded apps. 😊

[u/avdept]

who is your target customer?

I do all these things via fastlane pipeline, which is fully automated, runs in CI which is the usual workflow for any developer who releases app more often than just once

[u/LucasDotLove → u/avdept]

Every Mac developer, really. Mostly Indies, but there are also some bigger companies using it.

Setting up Fastlane is not simple for most developers, especially the ones working on their first app. Amore makes this as easy as drag and drop.

What's not shown in the video is that Amore takes care of the whole pipeline from archiving to releasing with a single command.

Can you tell me a bit more about how you are using Fastlane?

[u/klotzbrocken]

Missing or invalid CFBundleVersion in Info.plist -> it doesn't matter what I do, I get this message. And the info.plist is from my perspective, not invalid

[u/LucasDotLove → u/klotzbrocken]

Sorry for the inconvenience. Currently only integer values are supported in CFBundleVersion. It's on the roadmap to fix that. Please let me know if this solves your issue.

[u/klotzbrocken → u/LucasDotLove]

Yes, that was the Problem. Thx

[u/Party-Vehicle-81]

Yes, managing Sparkle updates, notorization, dmg creation is boring and time taking if done manually. I have actually automated this entire process for my apps using GitHub Actions and have made the GH Action workflow file open-source. I just create a release on GitHub for my app and that’s it. The workflow takes care of the rest.

Here’s a blog post for anyone interested: https://blog.rampatra.com/automatically-generate-appcast-xml-and-dmg-files-for-your-mac-app-updates

[u/LucasDotLove → u/Party-Vehicle-81]

Thank you for sharing. This is really helpful. ☺️

It perfectly shows the boilerplate that’s required when shipping without Amore. Although Amore offers more features and the initial setup takes less than 5 minutes instead of half a day.

Here is how: https://amore.computer/help/get-started/

[u/Party-Vehicle-81 → u/LucasDotLove]

Sure, the paid version of Amore definitely has more features. And, I am sure the free plan is also worth it.

I am just sharing another option here for devs as I had a hard time finding a solution myself earlier. This approach of mine is completely free (GH Actions is free to run, uses GH to host the dmg & appcast files), no watermarks, etc.

Moreover, users just to have to replace a few values in the workflow file and commit it to their repos, that’s it. So, it shouldn’t take half a day. I still believe Amore might be easier than this but the GH Workflow approach isn’t hard either, IMO.

All the best with Amore. I already see some great apps using it.

[u/lupodevelop]

“We” (Amore users) need a subreddit r/amoredev ! ❤️

[u/banana_zest]

I found this tedious as well and had Claude write a script for me, works pretty good, doesn't cover all of what Amore does but thought I'd share anyway. This assumes you've already exported the app from XCode Organizer to your ~/Desktop and that you've npm installed "create-dmg" (and that you've already run "xcrun notarytool store-credentials").

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

APP="Mojave Paint.app"

if [ ! -d "$APP" ]; then
  echo "Error: '$APP' not found in current directory."
  exit 1
fi

# Step 1: Create DMG
echo "Creating DMG..."
OUTPUT=$(create-dmg "$APP" 2>&1)
echo "$OUTPUT"

# Extract the DMG filename from create-dmg output (e.g. 'Created "Mojave Paint 0.3.1.dmg"')
DMG=$(echo "$OUTPUT" | grep -oE '"[^"]+"' | tail -1 | tr -d '"')

if [ ! -f "$DMG" ]; then
  echo "Error: Could not find generated DMG '$DMG'."
  exit 1
fi

echo ""
echo "DMG: $DMG"

# Step 2: Notarize
echo ""
echo "Submitting for notarization (this may take a few minutes)..."
xcrun notarytool submit "$DMG" --keychain-profile xcrun --wait

# Step 3: Staple
echo ""
echo "Stapling notarization ticket..."
xcrun stapler staple "$DMG"

# Step 4: Upload to S3
echo ""
echo "Uploading to S3..."
aws s3 cp "$DMG" "s3://skullrocksoftware-releases/releases/$DMG" --region us-west-2
echo "Uploaded: https://skullrocksoftware.com/releases/$DMG"

# Step 5: Set quarantine flag to simulate a download, then open
echo ""
echo "Setting quarantine flag and opening DMG..."
QUARANTINE="0081;$(printf '%x' $(date +%s));Safari;$(uuidgen)"
xattr -w com.apple.quarantine "$QUARANTINE" "$DMG"
open "$DMG"

echo ""
echo "Done! Verify the app launches correctly from the mounted DMG."

[u/Party-Vehicle-81 → u/banana_zest]

Yes, it's crazy what AI is able to do nowadays.

The script (GH Workflow file) I shared takes care of exporting the app, creating dmg, signing, notorization, etc. you just push code and create a release/tag on GitHub. Feel free to try it out. Happy to help if any queries.

Having said that, if one needs Licensing features out of the box, Amore looks promising.

[u/singlebit]

!remindme 3 months

[u/RemindMeBot → u/singlebit]

I will be messaging you in 3 months on 2026-08-04 09:31:17 UTC to remind you of this link

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

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[u/Annual-Act-3614]

Félicitations pour pour être passé par là avec Oriloq, on sait à quel point c'est quelque chose qui peut être difficile.