You can publish your .NET app on macOS by running the dotnet publish command in the Terminal with different parameters. Here is a step-by-step guide to walk you through the process.
Step-by-Step Guide
Install .NET SDK:
Make sure that the .NET SDK is installed on your macOS; you may download it from the official website of .NET.
Open Terminal:
Open the Terminal application on your Mac.
Go to Your Project Directory:
Change to the directory that contains.NET Core project with the cd command.
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cd /path/to/your/project
Publish Your App:
Run the following command to publish your app with dotnet publish and pass the framework, runtime identifier (RID), and configuration. For macOS, RID is typically osx-x64 or osx-arm64 based on your Mac architecture.
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dotnet publish -f net8.0 -r osx-x64 -c Release --self-contained
This command tells dotnet publish to:
-f net8.0: target .NET Framework 8.0.
-r osx-x64: This is the runtime identifier for macOS. Use osx-arm64 for Apple Silicon Macs.
-c Release: This sets the configuration to Release.
--self-contained: With this flag, a self-contained application is created, including the .NET runtime.
Finding Published Fils:
Once it has finished publishing your app, you can find it in the bin/Release/net8.0/osx-x64/publish directory. If you specified osx-arm64 as the RID when publishing, then your app shall be located in osx-arm64.
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cd bin/Release/net8.0/osx-x64/publish
Distribute Your App:
The generated folder will contain all the files necessary to run your app on macOS. You can package the contents of that folder into a zip file for distribution, or you can use something like pkgbuild to create an installer package.
Example Commands
Here is an example of a complete set of commands you might run in Terminal:
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cd /path/to/your/project
dotnet publish -f net8.0 -r osx-x64 -c Release --self-contained
cd bin/Release/net8.0/osx-x64/publish
More Tips
Apple Silicon Macs: This runtime identifier is osx-arm64 when targeting Apple Silicon Macs; otherwise, it is osx-x64.
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dotnet publish -f net8.0 -r osx-arm64 -c Release --self-contained
Application Bundle: You might need to bundle your macOS-based applications under an application bundle (.app). You could do that by hand or with additional tools/Scripts.
Signing and Notarization: Besides macOS distribution, specially for distribution outside the App Store, you should consider signing and notarizing your app to prevent security warnings.
These steps should give you a reasonable chance of successfully publishing and distributing your .NET application for macOS.