How do I create a nice-looking DMG for Mac OS X using command-line tools

Question

I need to create a nice installer for a Mac application  I want it to be a disk image  DMG   with a predefined size  layout and background image   I need to do this programmatically in a script  to be integrated in an existing build system  more of a pack system really  since it only create installers  The builds are done separately     I already have the DMG creation done using  hdiutil   what I haven t found out yet is how to make an icon layout and specify a background bitmap

User · Answer

My app  DropDMG  is an easy way to create disk images with background pictures  icon layouts  custom volume icons  and software license agreements  It can be controlled from a build system via the  dropdmg  command-line tool or AppleScript  If desired  the picture and license RTF files can be stored under your version control system

User · Answer

I ve just written a new  friendly  command line utility to do this   It doesn   t rely on Finder AppleScript  or on any of the  deprecated  Alias Manager APIs  and it   s easy to configure and use   Anyway  anyone who is interested can find it on PyPi  the documentation is available on Read The Docs

User · Answer

After lots of research  I ve come up with this answer  and I m hereby putting it here as an answer for my own question  for reference    Make sure that  Enable access for assistive devices  is checked in System Preferences  Universal Access  It is required for the AppleScript to work  You may have to reboot after this change  it doesn t work otherwise on Mac OS X Server 10 4   Create a R W DMG  It must be larger than the result will be  In this example  the bash variable  size  contains the size in Kb and the contents of the folder in the  source  bash variable will be copied into the DMG   hdiutil create -srcfolder    source   -volname    title   -fs HFS          -fsargs  -c c 64 a 16 e 16  -format UDRW -size   size k pack temp dmg  Mount the disk image  and store the device name  you might want to use sleep for a few seconds after this operation    device   hdiutil attach -readwrite -noverify -noautoopen  pack temp dmg               egrep    dev     sed 1q   awk   print  1     Store the background picture  in PNG format  in a folder called   background  in the DMG  and store its name in the  backgroundPictureName  variable   Use AppleScript to set the visual styles  name of  app must be in bash variable  applicationName   use variables for the other properties as needed    echo      tell application  Finder       tell disk     title               open            set current view of container window to icon view            set toolbar visible of container window to false            set statusbar visible of container window to false            set the bounds of container window to  400  100  885  430             set theViewOptions to the icon view options of container window            set arrangement of theViewOptions to not arranged            set icon size of theViewOptions to 72            set background picture of theViewOptions to file   background    backgroundPictureName               make new alias file at container window to POSIX file   Applications  with properties  name  Applications              set position of item     applicationName    of container window to  100  100             set position of item  Applications  of container window to  375  100             update without registering applications            delay 5            close      end tell    end tell     osascript  Finialize the DMG by setting permissions properly  compressing and releasing it   chmod -Rf go-w  Volumes    title   sync sync hdiutil detach   device  hdiutil convert   pack temp dmg  -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9 -o    finalDMGName   rm -f  pack temp dmg     On Snow Leopard  the above applescript will not set the icon position correctly - it seems to be a Snow Leopard bug  One workaround is to simply call close open after setting the icons  i e       set position of item     applicationName    of container window to  100  100  set position of item  Applications  of container window to  375  100  close open

User · Answer

Bringing this question up to date by providing this answer   appdmg is a simple  easy-to-use  open-source command line program that creates dmg-files from a simple json specification  Take a look at the readme at the official website   https   github com LinusU node-appdmg  Quick example    Install appdmg  npm install -g appdmg  Write a json file  spec json        title    Test Title      background    background png      icon-size   80     contents            x   192   y   344   type    file    path    TestApp app            x   448   y   344   type    link    path     Applications           Run program  appdmg spec json test dmg     disclaimer  I m the creator of appdmg

User · Answer

I finally got this working in my own project  which happens to be in Xcode   Adding these 3 scripts to your build phase will automatically create a Disk Image for your product that is nice and neat  All you have to do is build your project and the DMG will be waiting in your products folder   Script 1  Create Temp Disk Image       bin bash  Create a R W DMG  dir   TEMP FILES DIR disk  dmg   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME temp dmg   rm -rf   dir  mkdir   dir  cp -R   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME app    dir  ln -s   Applications    dir Applications  mkdir   dir  background  cp   PROJECT DIR  PROJECT NAME some image png    dir  background  rm -f   dmg  hdiutil create   dmg  -srcfolder   dir  -volname   PRODUCT NAME  -format UDRW   Mount the disk image  and store the device name hdiutil attach   dmg  -noverify -noautoopen -readwrite   Script 2  Set Window Properties Script       usr bin osascript  get the dimensions of the main window using a bash script  set  width  height  scale  to words of  do shell script  system profiler SPDisplaysDataType   awk   Main Display  Yes  found 1   Resolution  width  2  height  4   Retina  scale   2      Yes     2   1       8        if found   exit   scale 1  END printf    d  d  d  n    width  height  scale     set x to   width   2    scale  set y to   height   2    scale    get the product name using a bash script set  product name  to words of  do shell script  printf    s     PRODUCT NAME   set background to alias   Volumes   amp product name amp    background some image png    tell application  Finder      tell disk product name         open         set current view of container window to icon view         set toolbar visible of container window to false         set statusbar visible of container window to false         set the bounds of container window to  x  y   x   479    y   383           set theViewOptions to the icon view options of container window         set arrangement of theViewOptions to not arranged         set icon size of theViewOptions to 128         set background picture of theViewOptions to background         set position of item  product name  amp    app   of container window to  100  225          set position of item  Applications  of container window to  375  225          update without registering applications         close     end tell end tell   The above measurement for the window work for my project specifically due to the size of my background pic and icon resolution  you may need to modify these values for your own project   Script 3  Make Final Disk Image Script       bin bash dir   TEMP FILES DIR disk  cp   PROJECT DIR  PROJECT NAME some other image png    dir     unmount the temp image file  then convert it to final image file sync sync hdiutil detach  Volumes  PRODUCT NAME rm -f   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg  hdiutil convert   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME temp dmg  -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9 -o   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg  rm -f   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME temp dmg    Change the icon of the image file sips -i   dir some other image png  DeRez -only icns   dir some other image png   gt    dir tmpicns rsrc  Rez -append   dir tmpicns rsrc  -o   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg  SetFile -a C   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg   rm -rf   dir    Make sure the image files you are using are in the  PROJECT DIR  PROJECT NAME  directory

User · Answer

There s a little Bash script called create-dmg that builds fancy DMGs with custom backgrounds  custom icon positioning and volume name   I ve built it many years ago for the company that I ran at the time  it survives on other people s contribution since then  and reportedly works well   There s also node-appdmg which looks like a more modern and active effort based on Node js  check it out as well

User · Answer

For creating a nice looking DMG  you can now just use some well written open sources    create-dmg node-appdmg dmgbuild

User · Answer

I also in need of using command line approach to do the packaging and dmg creation  programmatically in a script   The best answer I found so far is from Adium project  Release building framework  See R1   There is a custom script AdiumApplescriptRunner  to allow you avoid OSX WindowsServer GUI interaction   osascript applescript scpt  approach require you to login as builder and run the dmg creation from a command line vt100 session   OSX package management system is not so advanced compared to other Unixen which can do this task easily and systematically   R1  http   hg adium im adium-1 4 file 00d944a3ef16 Release

User · Answer

DS Store files stores windows settings in Mac   Windows settings include the icons layout  the window background  the size of the window  etc   The  DS Store file is needed in creating the window for mounted images to preserve the arrangement of files and the windows background   Once you have  DS Store file created  you can just copy it to your created installer  DMG

User · Answer

If you want to set custom volume icon then use below command    Add a drive icon   cp   Volumes customIcon icns    Volumes dmgName  VolumeIcon icns        SetFile -c icnC will change the creator of the file to icnC   SetFile -c icnC   lt your path gt   VolumeIcon icns   Now create read write dmg    to set custom icon attribute   SetFile -a C  Volumes dmgName

User · Answer

Don t go there  As a long term Mac developer  I can assure you  no solution is really working well  I tried so many solutions  but they are all not too good  I think the problem is that Apple does not really document the meta data format for the necessary data   Here s how I m doing it for a long time  very successfully    Create a new DMG  writeable     big enough to hold the expected binary and extra files like readme  sparse might work   Mount the DMG and give it a layout manually in Finder or with whatever tools suits you for doing that  see FileStorm link at the bottom for a good tool   The background image is usually an image we put into a hidden folder    something   on the DMG  Put a copy of your app there  any version  even outdated one will do   Copy other files  aliases  readme  etc   you want there  again  outdated versions will do just fine  Make sure icons have the right sizes and positions  IOW  layout the DMG the way you want it to be   Unmount the DMG again  all settings should be stored by now  Write a create DMG script  that works as follows     It copies the DMG  so the original one is never touched again  It mounts the copy  It replaces all files with the most up to date ones  e g  latest app after build   You can simply use mv or ditto for that on command line  Note  when you replace a file like that  the icon will stay the same  the position will stay the same  everything but the file  or directory  content stays the same  at least with ditto  which we usually use for that task   You can of course also replace the background image with another one  just make sure it has the same dimensions   After replacing the files  make the script unmount the DMG copy again  Finally call hdiutil to convert the writable  to a compressed  and such not writable  DMG     This method may not sound optimal  but trust me  it works really well in practice  You can put the original DMG  DMG template  even under version control  e g  SVN   so if you ever accidentally change destroy it  you can just go back to a revision where it was still okay  You can add the DMG template to your Xcode project  together with all other files that belong onto the DMG  readme  URL file  background image   all under version control and then create a target  e g  external target named  Create DMG   and there run the DMG script of above and add your old main target as dependent target  You can access files in the Xcode tree using   SRCROOT  in the script  is always the source root of your product  and you can access build products by using   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR   is always the directory where Xcode creates the build results    Result  Actually Xcode can produce the DMG at the end of the build  A DMG that is ready to release  Not only you can create a relase DMG pretty easy that way  you can actually do so in an automated process  on a headless server if you like   using xcodebuild from command line  automated nightly builds for example    Regarding the initial layout of the template  FileStorm is a good tool for doing it  It is commercial  but very powerful and easy to use  The normal version is less than  20  so it is really affordable  Maybe one can automate FileStorm to create a DMG  e g  via AppleScript   never tried that  but once you have found the perfect template DMG  it s really easy to update it for every release

User · Answer

Don t go there  As a long term Mac developer  I can assure you  no solution is really working well  I tried so many solutions  but they are all not too good  I think the problem is that Apple does not really document the meta data format for the necessary data   Here s how I m doing it for a long time  very successfully    Create a new DMG  writeable     big enough to hold the expected binary and extra files like readme  sparse might work   Mount the DMG and give it a layout manually in Finder or with whatever tools suits you for doing that  see FileStorm link at the bottom for a good tool   The background image is usually an image we put into a hidden folder    something   on the DMG  Put a copy of your app there  any version  even outdated one will do   Copy other files  aliases  readme  etc   you want there  again  outdated versions will do just fine  Make sure icons have the right sizes and positions  IOW  layout the DMG the way you want it to be   Unmount the DMG again  all settings should be stored by now  Write a create DMG script  that works as follows     It copies the DMG  so the original one is never touched again  It mounts the copy  It replaces all files with the most up to date ones  e g  latest app after build   You can simply use mv or ditto for that on command line  Note  when you replace a file like that  the icon will stay the same  the position will stay the same  everything but the file  or directory  content stays the same  at least with ditto  which we usually use for that task   You can of course also replace the background image with another one  just make sure it has the same dimensions   After replacing the files  make the script unmount the DMG copy again  Finally call hdiutil to convert the writable  to a compressed  and such not writable  DMG     This method may not sound optimal  but trust me  it works really well in practice  You can put the original DMG  DMG template  even under version control  e g  SVN   so if you ever accidentally change destroy it  you can just go back to a revision where it was still okay  You can add the DMG template to your Xcode project  together with all other files that belong onto the DMG  readme  URL file  background image   all under version control and then create a target  e g  external target named  Create DMG   and there run the DMG script of above and add your old main target as dependent target  You can access files in the Xcode tree using   SRCROOT  in the script  is always the source root of your product  and you can access build products by using   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR   is always the directory where Xcode creates the build results    Result  Actually Xcode can produce the DMG at the end of the build  A DMG that is ready to release  Not only you can create a relase DMG pretty easy that way  you can actually do so in an automated process  on a headless server if you like   using xcodebuild from command line  automated nightly builds for example    Regarding the initial layout of the template  FileStorm is a good tool for doing it  It is commercial  but very powerful and easy to use  The normal version is less than  20  so it is really affordable  Maybe one can automate FileStorm to create a DMG  e g  via AppleScript   never tried that  but once you have found the perfect template DMG  it s really easy to update it for every release

User · Answer

I also in need of using command line approach to do the packaging and dmg creation  programmatically in a script   The best answer I found so far is from Adium project  Release building framework  See R1   There is a custom script AdiumApplescriptRunner  to allow you avoid OSX WindowsServer GUI interaction   osascript applescript scpt  approach require you to login as builder and run the dmg creation from a command line vt100 session   OSX package management system is not so advanced compared to other Unixen which can do this task easily and systematically   R1  http   hg adium im adium-1 4 file 00d944a3ef16 Release

User · Answer

My app  DropDMG  is an easy way to create disk images with background pictures  icon layouts  custom volume icons  and software license agreements  It can be controlled from a build system via the  dropdmg  command-line tool or AppleScript  If desired  the picture and license RTF files can be stored under your version control system

User · Answer

For creating a nice looking DMG  you can now just use some well written open sources    create-dmg node-appdmg dmgbuild

User · Answer

For those of you that are interested in this topic  I should mention how I create the DMG   hdiutil create XXX dmg -volname  YYY  -fs HFS  -srcfolder  ZZZ    where  XXX    disk image file name  duh   YYY    window title displayed when DMG is opened ZZZ    Path to a folder containing the files that will be copied into the DMG

User · Answer

These answers are way too complicated and times have changed   The following works on 10 9 just fine  permissions are correct and it looks nice   Create a read-only DMG from a directory     bin sh   create dmg Frobulator Frobulator dmg path to frobulator dir    Your Code Sign Identity    set -e  VOLNAME   1  DMG   2  SRC DIR   3  CODESIGN IDENTITY   4   hdiutil create -srcfolder   SRC DIR      -volname   VOLNAME      -fs HFS  -fsargs  -c c 64 a 16 e 16      -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9   DMG   if   -n   CODESIGN IDENTITY     then   codesign -s   CODESIGN IDENTITY  -v   DMG  fi   Create read-only DMG with an icon   icns type      bin sh   create dmg with icon Frobulator Frobulator dmg path to frobulator dir path to someicon icns    Your Code Sign Identity    set -e VOLNAME   1  DMG   2  SRC DIR   3  ICON FILE   4  CODESIGN IDENTITY   5   TMP DMG    mktemp -u -t XXXXXXX   trap  RESULT     rm -f   TMP DMG   exit  RESULT  INT QUIT TERM EXIT hdiutil create -srcfolder   SRC DIR  -volname   VOLNAME  -fs HFS                   -fsargs  -c c 64 a 16 e 16  -format UDRW   TMP DMG  TMP DMG    TMP DMG  dmg    because OSX appends  dmg DEVICE    hdiutil attach -readwrite -noautoopen   TMP DMG    awk  NR  1 print 1     VOLUME    mount   grep   DEVICE    sed  s        on    s                  start of DMG changes cp   ICON FILE    VOLUME  VolumeIcon icns  SetFile -c icnC   VOLUME  VolumeIcon icns  SetFile -a C   VOLUME    end of DMG changes hdiutil detach   DEVICE  hdiutil convert   TMP DMG  -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9 -o   DMG  if   -n   CODESIGN IDENTITY     then   codesign -s   CODESIGN IDENTITY  -v   DMG  fi   If anything else needs to happen  these easiest thing is to make a temporary copy of the SRC DIR and apply changes to that before creating a DMG

User · Answer

For those of you that are interested in this topic  I should mention how I create the DMG   hdiutil create XXX dmg -volname  YYY  -fs HFS  -srcfolder  ZZZ    where  XXX    disk image file name  duh   YYY    window title displayed when DMG is opened ZZZ    Path to a folder containing the files that will be copied into the DMG

User · Answer

Bringing this question up to date by providing this answer   appdmg is a simple  easy-to-use  open-source command line program that creates dmg-files from a simple json specification  Take a look at the readme at the official website   https   github com LinusU node-appdmg  Quick example    Install appdmg  npm install -g appdmg  Write a json file  spec json        title    Test Title      background    background png      icon-size   80     contents            x   192   y   344   type    file    path    TestApp app            x   448   y   344   type    link    path     Applications           Run program  appdmg spec json test dmg     disclaimer  I m the creator of appdmg

User · Answer

If you want to set custom volume icon then use below command    Add a drive icon   cp   Volumes customIcon icns    Volumes dmgName  VolumeIcon icns        SetFile -c icnC will change the creator of the file to icnC   SetFile -c icnC   lt your path gt   VolumeIcon icns   Now create read write dmg    to set custom icon attribute   SetFile -a C  Volumes dmgName

User · Answer

I found this great mac app to automate the process - http   www araelium com dmgcanvas  you must have a look if you are creating dmg installer for your mac app

User · Answer

For those of you that are interested in this topic  I should mention how I create the DMG   hdiutil create XXX dmg -volname  YYY  -fs HFS  -srcfolder  ZZZ    where  XXX    disk image file name  duh   YYY    window title displayed when DMG is opened ZZZ    Path to a folder containing the files that will be copied into the DMG

User · Answer

Don t go there  As a long term Mac developer  I can assure you  no solution is really working well  I tried so many solutions  but they are all not too good  I think the problem is that Apple does not really document the meta data format for the necessary data   Here s how I m doing it for a long time  very successfully    Create a new DMG  writeable     big enough to hold the expected binary and extra files like readme  sparse might work   Mount the DMG and give it a layout manually in Finder or with whatever tools suits you for doing that  see FileStorm link at the bottom for a good tool   The background image is usually an image we put into a hidden folder    something   on the DMG  Put a copy of your app there  any version  even outdated one will do   Copy other files  aliases  readme  etc   you want there  again  outdated versions will do just fine  Make sure icons have the right sizes and positions  IOW  layout the DMG the way you want it to be   Unmount the DMG again  all settings should be stored by now  Write a create DMG script  that works as follows     It copies the DMG  so the original one is never touched again  It mounts the copy  It replaces all files with the most up to date ones  e g  latest app after build   You can simply use mv or ditto for that on command line  Note  when you replace a file like that  the icon will stay the same  the position will stay the same  everything but the file  or directory  content stays the same  at least with ditto  which we usually use for that task   You can of course also replace the background image with another one  just make sure it has the same dimensions   After replacing the files  make the script unmount the DMG copy again  Finally call hdiutil to convert the writable  to a compressed  and such not writable  DMG     This method may not sound optimal  but trust me  it works really well in practice  You can put the original DMG  DMG template  even under version control  e g  SVN   so if you ever accidentally change destroy it  you can just go back to a revision where it was still okay  You can add the DMG template to your Xcode project  together with all other files that belong onto the DMG  readme  URL file  background image   all under version control and then create a target  e g  external target named  Create DMG   and there run the DMG script of above and add your old main target as dependent target  You can access files in the Xcode tree using   SRCROOT  in the script  is always the source root of your product  and you can access build products by using   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR   is always the directory where Xcode creates the build results    Result  Actually Xcode can produce the DMG at the end of the build  A DMG that is ready to release  Not only you can create a relase DMG pretty easy that way  you can actually do so in an automated process  on a headless server if you like   using xcodebuild from command line  automated nightly builds for example    Regarding the initial layout of the template  FileStorm is a good tool for doing it  It is commercial  but very powerful and easy to use  The normal version is less than  20  so it is really affordable  Maybe one can automate FileStorm to create a DMG  e g  via AppleScript   never tried that  but once you have found the perfect template DMG  it s really easy to update it for every release

User · Answer

I found this great mac app to automate the process - http   www araelium com dmgcanvas  you must have a look if you are creating dmg installer for your mac app

User · Answer

I ve just written a new  friendly  command line utility to do this   It doesn   t rely on Finder AppleScript  or on any of the  deprecated  Alias Manager APIs  and it   s easy to configure and use   Anyway  anyone who is interested can find it on PyPi  the documentation is available on Read The Docs

User · Answer

DS Store files stores windows settings in Mac   Windows settings include the icons layout  the window background  the size of the window  etc   The  DS Store file is needed in creating the window for mounted images to preserve the arrangement of files and the windows background   Once you have  DS Store file created  you can just copy it to your created installer  DMG

User · Answer

For those of you that are interested in this topic  I should mention how I create the DMG   hdiutil create XXX dmg -volname  YYY  -fs HFS  -srcfolder  ZZZ    where  XXX    disk image file name  duh   YYY    window title displayed when DMG is opened ZZZ    Path to a folder containing the files that will be copied into the DMG

User · Answer

I finally got this working in my own project  which happens to be in Xcode   Adding these 3 scripts to your build phase will automatically create a Disk Image for your product that is nice and neat  All you have to do is build your project and the DMG will be waiting in your products folder   Script 1  Create Temp Disk Image       bin bash  Create a R W DMG  dir   TEMP FILES DIR disk  dmg   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME temp dmg   rm -rf   dir  mkdir   dir  cp -R   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME app    dir  ln -s   Applications    dir Applications  mkdir   dir  background  cp   PROJECT DIR  PROJECT NAME some image png    dir  background  rm -f   dmg  hdiutil create   dmg  -srcfolder   dir  -volname   PRODUCT NAME  -format UDRW   Mount the disk image  and store the device name hdiutil attach   dmg  -noverify -noautoopen -readwrite   Script 2  Set Window Properties Script       usr bin osascript  get the dimensions of the main window using a bash script  set  width  height  scale  to words of  do shell script  system profiler SPDisplaysDataType   awk   Main Display  Yes  found 1   Resolution  width  2  height  4   Retina  scale   2      Yes     2   1       8        if found   exit   scale 1  END printf    d  d  d  n    width  height  scale     set x to   width   2    scale  set y to   height   2    scale    get the product name using a bash script set  product name  to words of  do shell script  printf    s     PRODUCT NAME   set background to alias   Volumes   amp product name amp    background some image png    tell application  Finder      tell disk product name         open         set current view of container window to icon view         set toolbar visible of container window to false         set statusbar visible of container window to false         set the bounds of container window to  x  y   x   479    y   383           set theViewOptions to the icon view options of container window         set arrangement of theViewOptions to not arranged         set icon size of theViewOptions to 128         set background picture of theViewOptions to background         set position of item  product name  amp    app   of container window to  100  225          set position of item  Applications  of container window to  375  225          update without registering applications         close     end tell end tell   The above measurement for the window work for my project specifically due to the size of my background pic and icon resolution  you may need to modify these values for your own project   Script 3  Make Final Disk Image Script       bin bash dir   TEMP FILES DIR disk  cp   PROJECT DIR  PROJECT NAME some other image png    dir     unmount the temp image file  then convert it to final image file sync sync hdiutil detach  Volumes  PRODUCT NAME rm -f   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg  hdiutil convert   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME temp dmg  -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9 -o   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg  rm -f   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME temp dmg    Change the icon of the image file sips -i   dir some other image png  DeRez -only icns   dir some other image png   gt    dir tmpicns rsrc  Rez -append   dir tmpicns rsrc  -o   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg  SetFile -a C   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR  PRODUCT NAME dmg   rm -rf   dir    Make sure the image files you are using are in the  PROJECT DIR  PROJECT NAME  directory

User · Answer

There s a little Bash script called create-dmg that builds fancy DMGs with custom backgrounds  custom icon positioning and volume name   I ve built it many years ago for the company that I ran at the time  it survives on other people s contribution since then  and reportedly works well   There s also node-appdmg which looks like a more modern and active effort based on Node js  check it out as well

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Don t go there  As a long term Mac developer  I can assure you  no solution is really working well  I tried so many solutions  but they are all not too good  I think the problem is that Apple does not really document the meta data format for the necessary data   Here s how I m doing it for a long time  very successfully    Create a new DMG  writeable     big enough to hold the expected binary and extra files like readme  sparse might work   Mount the DMG and give it a layout manually in Finder or with whatever tools suits you for doing that  see FileStorm link at the bottom for a good tool   The background image is usually an image we put into a hidden folder    something   on the DMG  Put a copy of your app there  any version  even outdated one will do   Copy other files  aliases  readme  etc   you want there  again  outdated versions will do just fine  Make sure icons have the right sizes and positions  IOW  layout the DMG the way you want it to be   Unmount the DMG again  all settings should be stored by now  Write a create DMG script  that works as follows     It copies the DMG  so the original one is never touched again  It mounts the copy  It replaces all files with the most up to date ones  e g  latest app after build   You can simply use mv or ditto for that on command line  Note  when you replace a file like that  the icon will stay the same  the position will stay the same  everything but the file  or directory  content stays the same  at least with ditto  which we usually use for that task   You can of course also replace the background image with another one  just make sure it has the same dimensions   After replacing the files  make the script unmount the DMG copy again  Finally call hdiutil to convert the writable  to a compressed  and such not writable  DMG     This method may not sound optimal  but trust me  it works really well in practice  You can put the original DMG  DMG template  even under version control  e g  SVN   so if you ever accidentally change destroy it  you can just go back to a revision where it was still okay  You can add the DMG template to your Xcode project  together with all other files that belong onto the DMG  readme  URL file  background image   all under version control and then create a target  e g  external target named  Create DMG   and there run the DMG script of above and add your old main target as dependent target  You can access files in the Xcode tree using   SRCROOT  in the script  is always the source root of your product  and you can access build products by using   BUILT PRODUCTS DIR   is always the directory where Xcode creates the build results    Result  Actually Xcode can produce the DMG at the end of the build  A DMG that is ready to release  Not only you can create a relase DMG pretty easy that way  you can actually do so in an automated process  on a headless server if you like   using xcodebuild from command line  automated nightly builds for example    Regarding the initial layout of the template  FileStorm is a good tool for doing it  It is commercial  but very powerful and easy to use  The normal version is less than  20  so it is really affordable  Maybe one can automate FileStorm to create a DMG  e g  via AppleScript   never tried that  but once you have found the perfect template DMG  it s really easy to update it for every release

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After lots of research  I ve come up with this answer  and I m hereby putting it here as an answer for my own question  for reference    Make sure that  Enable access for assistive devices  is checked in System Preferences  Universal Access  It is required for the AppleScript to work  You may have to reboot after this change  it doesn t work otherwise on Mac OS X Server 10 4   Create a R W DMG  It must be larger than the result will be  In this example  the bash variable  size  contains the size in Kb and the contents of the folder in the  source  bash variable will be copied into the DMG   hdiutil create -srcfolder    source   -volname    title   -fs HFS          -fsargs  -c c 64 a 16 e 16  -format UDRW -size   size k pack temp dmg  Mount the disk image  and store the device name  you might want to use sleep for a few seconds after this operation    device   hdiutil attach -readwrite -noverify -noautoopen  pack temp dmg               egrep    dev     sed 1q   awk   print  1     Store the background picture  in PNG format  in a folder called   background  in the DMG  and store its name in the  backgroundPictureName  variable   Use AppleScript to set the visual styles  name of  app must be in bash variable  applicationName   use variables for the other properties as needed    echo      tell application  Finder       tell disk     title               open            set current view of container window to icon view            set toolbar visible of container window to false            set statusbar visible of container window to false            set the bounds of container window to  400  100  885  430             set theViewOptions to the icon view options of container window            set arrangement of theViewOptions to not arranged            set icon size of theViewOptions to 72            set background picture of theViewOptions to file   background    backgroundPictureName               make new alias file at container window to POSIX file   Applications  with properties  name  Applications              set position of item     applicationName    of container window to  100  100             set position of item  Applications  of container window to  375  100             update without registering applications            delay 5            close      end tell    end tell     osascript  Finialize the DMG by setting permissions properly  compressing and releasing it   chmod -Rf go-w  Volumes    title   sync sync hdiutil detach   device  hdiutil convert   pack temp dmg  -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9 -o    finalDMGName   rm -f  pack temp dmg     On Snow Leopard  the above applescript will not set the icon position correctly - it seems to be a Snow Leopard bug  One workaround is to simply call close open after setting the icons  i e       set position of item     applicationName    of container window to  100  100  set position of item  Applications  of container window to  375  100  close open

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These answers are way too complicated and times have changed   The following works on 10 9 just fine  permissions are correct and it looks nice   Create a read-only DMG from a directory     bin sh   create dmg Frobulator Frobulator dmg path to frobulator dir    Your Code Sign Identity    set -e  VOLNAME   1  DMG   2  SRC DIR   3  CODESIGN IDENTITY   4   hdiutil create -srcfolder   SRC DIR      -volname   VOLNAME      -fs HFS  -fsargs  -c c 64 a 16 e 16      -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9   DMG   if   -n   CODESIGN IDENTITY     then   codesign -s   CODESIGN IDENTITY  -v   DMG  fi   Create read-only DMG with an icon   icns type      bin sh   create dmg with icon Frobulator Frobulator dmg path to frobulator dir path to someicon icns    Your Code Sign Identity    set -e VOLNAME   1  DMG   2  SRC DIR   3  ICON FILE   4  CODESIGN IDENTITY   5   TMP DMG    mktemp -u -t XXXXXXX   trap  RESULT     rm -f   TMP DMG   exit  RESULT  INT QUIT TERM EXIT hdiutil create -srcfolder   SRC DIR  -volname   VOLNAME  -fs HFS                   -fsargs  -c c 64 a 16 e 16  -format UDRW   TMP DMG  TMP DMG    TMP DMG  dmg    because OSX appends  dmg DEVICE    hdiutil attach -readwrite -noautoopen   TMP DMG    awk  NR  1 print 1     VOLUME    mount   grep   DEVICE    sed  s        on    s                  start of DMG changes cp   ICON FILE    VOLUME  VolumeIcon icns  SetFile -c icnC   VOLUME  VolumeIcon icns  SetFile -a C   VOLUME    end of DMG changes hdiutil detach   DEVICE  hdiutil convert   TMP DMG  -format UDZO -imagekey zlib-level 9 -o   DMG  if   -n   CODESIGN IDENTITY     then   codesign -s   CODESIGN IDENTITY  -v   DMG  fi   If anything else needs to happen  these easiest thing is to make a temporary copy of the SRC DIR and apply changes to that before creating a DMG

[macos] How do I create a nice-looking DMG for Mac OS X using command-line tools?

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