Customizing Sparkle

Besides the SUFeedURL and SUPublicEDKey options, Sparkle will choose defaults for your app’s update behavior. However you can change these settings if you want different behavior.

For example:

• If you do not want Sparkle to prompt the user (on second app launch) asking for permission if your app can check for updates automatically in the background, set SUEnableAutomaticChecks in your app’s Info.plist.
• If you want Sparkle to automatically download and install updates silently in the background instead of notifying users of updates every time by default, enable SUAutomaticallyUpdate in your app’s Info.plist.

Some of the Info.plist settings below are also paired with an updater API to change the settings at runtime, like SUEnableAutomaticChecks with automaticallyChecksForUpdates. The Info.plist settings are meant for default configuration, while the runtime APIs are in response to user setting changes. Please do not use the runtime APIs for setting initial default behavior. Check how to add update settings for examples on changing user settings.

Info.plist Settings

Key	Type	Value
SUFeedURL	String	The URL of your appcast, e.g. https://example.com/appcast.xml. It’s recommended to set it in Info.plist, even if you change it later programmatically.
SUPublicEDKey	String	The base64-encoded public EdDSA key. Use Sparkle’s generate_keys tool to get it.
SUEnableAutomaticChecks	Boolean	By default when this is not set, automatic checking for updates is initially disabled but users will be prompted for permission for Sparkle to check for updates automatically on second launch. If permission is granted, automatic checks for updates then becomes enabled. As of Sparkle 2.4 or later, the user will also have an option to opt in or out of automatic downloading of updates; the default state is based on the SUAutomaticallyUpdate setting. Setting this to YES enables automatic checking for updates (but not installation) by default, without asking your users for permission first. Setting this to NO disables automatic checking for updates by default, also without asking your users for permission. This default property can later be overridden by setting automaticallyChecksForUpdates in response to user setting changes.
SUScheduledCheckInterval	Number	The number of seconds between updates. The default is 86400 (1 day). Note: this has a minimum bound of 1 hour in order to keep you from accidentally overloading your servers.
SUAutomaticallyUpdate	Boolean	Default: NO. Enables automatic download and installation of updates by default. If set to YES, Sparkle will attempt to download and install new updates silently in the background. Updates may be downloaded but not installed automatically if authorization is required. If the application hasn’t quit for 1 week the user will be presented with installing the downloaded update (unless the updater delegate overrides this). This default property can later be overridden by setting automaticallyDownloadsUpdates in response to user setting changes (for example, the standard update alert has a checkbox for changing this).
SUAllowsAutomaticUpdates	Boolean	By default, Sparkle automatically presents your users with the option to allow to automatically download and install any available updates if automatic checking of updates is enabled. Set this to NO to disallow automatic updates and require manual installation every time. Set this to YES to always allow automatic updates even if automatic checking of updates is disabled.
SUEnableSystemProfiling	Boolean	Default: NO. Enables anonymous system profiling. See System Profiling for more.
SUVerifyUpdateBeforeExtraction	Boolean	Default: NO. Set this to YES to force verification of updates before Sparkle extracts the downloaded update. Use this setting if you want stronger update validation and you aren’t likely to lose access to your private EdDSA key (typically stored inside the macOS Keychain). EdDSA signing is required to use this setting. Key rotation is still possible by using Apple Developer ID code signed disk images as fallback. This setting is available in Sparkle 2.7 and later.
SUShowReleaseNotes	Boolean	Default: YES. Set this to NO to hide release notes display from the update alert.
SUAllowedURLSchemes	Array of Strings	An array of custom URL schemes allowed to be clicked from Sparkle’s release notes view. By default, Sparkle only allows clicks to links that have a safe known URL scheme (like https). This setting is available in Sparkle 2.5 and later.
SUBundleName	String	Optional alternative bundle display name. For example, if your bundle name already has a version number appended to it, setting this may help smooth out certain messages, e.g. “MyApp 3 4.0 is now available” vs “MyApp 4.0 is now available”.
SUDefaultsDomain	String	Optional alternative NSUserDefaults domain name if you don’t want to use the standard user defaults, for example when accessing preferences from an App Group suite.
SUEnableJavaScript	Boolean	Default: NO. Set this to YES if you want to allow JavaScript in your release notes.
SURelaunchHostBundle	Boolean	Default: NO. For plug-ins in Sparkle 2, set this to YES to re-launch the host targetted bundle instead of the application bundle. For example, this can be used to re-open a System Settings prefpane after an update has been installed.

Sandboxing Settings

Here are the Info.plist settings relevant to use for Sandboxed applications using Sparkle 2. Applications that are not sandboxed should not customize any of these settings. Please visit the Sandboxing guide for more detailed information.

Key	Type	Value
SUEnableInstallerLauncherService	Boolean	Default: NO. Set this to YES to enable using the Installer Launcher XPC Service, which is required for all Sandboxed applications. Do not enable this XPC Service if your application is not sandboxed (sandboxed applications must have the com.apple.security.app-sandbox entitlement).
SUEnableDownloaderService	Boolean	Default: NO. Set this to YES to enable using the Downloader XPC Service. Do not enable this XPC Service if your sandboxed application already requests the com.apple.security.network.client (Outgoing Network Connections) entitlement.
SUEnableInstallerConnectionService	Boolean	Default: NO. Set this to YES to enable using the Installer Connection Service. This service is usually not needed due to being able to add a mach name lookup exception entitlement instead. This service is not included in Sparkle’s framework distribution by default.
SUEnableInstallerStatusService	Boolean	Default: NO. Set this to YES to enable using the Installer Status Service. This service is usually not needed due to being able to add a mach name lookup exception entitlement instead. This service is not included in Sparkle’s framework distribution by default.

Sparkle APIs

Please visit the Sparkle 2 API Reference for full documentation on class and delegate APIs.