Cannot get `asar-unpack` to work

Our Electron app uses convert from ImageMagick, and that needs some .xml files alongside the binary. Our electron folder ends up looking like this:

public/
├── external/
│   ├── colors.xml
│   ├── convert
│   ├── delegates.xml
│   └── magic.xml
├── app.css
├── app.js
├── electron-main.js
├── index.html
├── package.json
└── vendor.js

I’m able to run asar pack public/ public.asar --unpack 'public/external/*' and get both public.asar and public.asar.unpacked, but I cannot for the life of me figure out the path to be passed via build.asar-unpack in the development package.json.

I’ve tried …

  "build": {
    "asar-unpack": "public/external/*"
  }
  "build": {
    "asar-unpack": "external/*"
  }
  "build": {
    "asar-unpack": "app/external/*"
  }
  "build": {
    "asar-unpack": "*/external/*"
  }
  "build": {
    "asar-unpack": "dist/ProductName-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/Resources/app/external/*"
  }

… But am not able to get app.asar.unpacked. Is there anything I’m missing?

[whyboris]

Thank you @mikew for also sharing your answer. In 2018 this worked:

"mac": {
  ...
  "target": "dmg",
  "asar": true,
  "asarUnpack": [
    "../node_modules/@ffmpeg-installer"
  ]
}

Successfully get this once the dmg is installed:

contents/
├── Resources/
│   ├── app.asar
│   └── app.asar.unpacked/
│       └── node_modules/
│           └── @ffmpeg-installer/

Now the tricky part is referring to it from within your app :trollface: This hazardous workaround seems to work with basically 1 line of code: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/6262#issuecomment-273312942

[mikew]

Ah, figured it out. Using a globstar works, and no matter your directory structure, your files will be under app/. The following works:

  "build": {
    "asar-unpack": "**/app/external/*"
  }