Crossdeployqt

This is a tool that collects the dependencies and assets for a Qt 6 application so it is suitable for packaging & deployment.

It supports Linux, macOS & Windows(MingW) binaries, and can be viewed as an alternative for windeployqt, macdeployqt and linuxdeployqt.

Crossdeployqt is used on a Linux host, and can deploy for Linux & Windows(MingW). It could technically deploy macOS on a Linux host if you have the SDK & Qt frameworks, in our usage we use a macOS host.

Code signing, packaging & installers for distribution is out of scope, use dedicated packaging tools i.e Velopack. For convienience, vpk and velopack-libc with MingW bindings, as well as appimagetool and its type2 runtimes via appimagetool-full are provided by the Nix derivation.

Usage

$ crossdeployqt --bin <path-to-binary> --out <output-dir> [--qml-root <dir>]... [--languages <lang[,lang...>]> [--overlay <dir>]...

i.e

$ crossdeployqt --bin <PATH TO>/foo.exe --out ./dist-win/
$ crossdeployqt --bin <PATH TO>/foo --out ./dist-linux/
$ crossdeployqt --bin <PATH TO>/foo.app/Contents/MacOS/bar --out ./dist-macos/

Under Nix crossdeployqt is wrapped with all tools required for operation on PATH: qtpaths, qmlimportscanner, lconvert, objdump, patchelf, x86_64-w64-mingw32-objdump, llvm-otool, llvm-install-name-tool, and find.

$ nix run github:logos-co/crossdeployqt -- --help

or

{
  inputs.crossdeployqt.url = "github:logos-co/crossdeployqt";
  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, crossdeployqt, ... }:
    let
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; };
    in {
      devShells.${system}.default = pkgs.mkShell {
        packages = [ crossdeployqt.packages.${system}.default ];
      };
    };
}

Packaging

Velopack can be used for packaging & code-signing on multiple platforms, requires no appimagetool and does not require using their updater functionality using --skipVeloAppCheck.

Windows

Velopack signs every PE binary it finds under --packDir — i.e., .exe and .dll — recursively by default. You can switch to "EXE‑only" with --signSkipDll, and you can exclude files with a regex via --signExclude "\.(resources|dbg)\.dll$".

You may want to look into --signParams ..., --azureTrustedSignFile, --signParallel as needed.

vpk pack ^
  --packId com.example.myapp ^
  --packVersion 1.0.0 ^
  --packDir dist\win-x64 ^
  --mainExe MyApp.exe ^
  --packTitle "My App" ^
  --icon build\myapp.ico ^
  --delta none ^
  --noPortable ^
  --signParams "/a /fd sha256 /tr http://timestamp.digicert.com /td sha256" ^
  --skipVeloAppCheck

macOS

By default Velopack codesigns the entire .app bundle ("deep signing") and then notarizes, which covers frameworks/dylibs. With --signDisableDeep Velopack expects the bundle to be pre‑signed.

Notarisation requires notarytool on your PATH.

--signAppIdentity, --signInstallIdentity, --notaryProfile

vpk pack \
  --packId com.example.myapp \
  --packVersion 1.0.0 \
  --packDir dist/MyApp.app \
  --mainExe MyApp \
  --packTitle "My App" \
  --icon build/myapp.icns \
  --delta none \
  --noPortable \
  --signAppIdentity "Developer ID Application: Your Company (TEAMID)" \
  --signInstallIdentity "Developer ID Installer: Your Company (TEAMID)" \
  --notaryProfile "MyNotaryProfile"

Linux AppImage

For Linux, there isn't an OS‑level code‑signing pass for ELF binaries

vpk pack \
  --packId com.example.myapp \
  --packVersion 1.0.0 \
  --packDir dist/linux-x64 \
  --mainExe myapp \
  --packTitle "My App"

Notes

Missing features:

• Automatic translation file handling
• No Wayland detection, XCB is assumed on Linux
• Missing types (tls, styles, iconengines, sqldrivers, multimedia, printsupport, platformthemes, etc.)