Is there a way to speed up build process on Mac?

• Version: 22.9.1

• Electron Version: 11.1.0
• Electron Type (current, beta, nightly):

• Target: macOS (dmg & zip)

I am noticing that it takes a lot of time (close to 45 - 50 minutes) to make a build for macOS. Just wondering if that process can be sped up.

For the build, I am using standard build configuration which prepares a dmg and a zip file. The process is fairly standard. Here are the steps, the build process goes through:

1. Compile code & sign binaries (takes approximately 5 minutes)
2. Notarize application (takes approximately 10 minutes)
3. Build artifacts [zip, dmg, and dmg.blockmap] (takes approximately 20 minutes). The most of the time is spent in building dmg.blockmap file. Other artifacts are built pretty fast.
4. Upload artifacts in Azure Storage (takes approximately 10 - 15 minutes depending on the Internet speed).

Now, 2 and 4 are not really in our control as a lot of the time spent in these steps depends on internet connectivity. What I am wondering is if we can somehow speed up step 3?

Here’s the build script I am using:

const builder = require('electron-builder');
const buildCommonConfig = require('./common-build-config.js');

console.log('Building installer for OSX (x64). Please wait....');
const osxConfig = {
  category: 'public.app-category.developer-tools',
  icon: './resources/osx/icon.icns',
  artifactName: 'AppName.${ext}',
  hardenedRuntime: true,
  gatekeeperAssess: false,
  entitlements: './resources/osx/entitlements.mac.plist',
  entitlementsInherit: './resources/osx/entitlements.mac.inherit.plist',
  target: {
    target: 'default',
    arch: ['x64']
  }
};

const osxBuildConfig = Object.assign({
  afterSign: './build-scripts/after-sign-hook.js'//This is where notarization happens.
}, buildCommonConfig);
osxBuildConfig.mac = osxConfig;

builder.build({
  config: osxBuildConfig
})
.then((result) => {
  console.log('Done building OSX (x64) installer....');
  console.log(result);
})
.catch((error) => {
  console.log('Error building OSX (x64) installer....');
  console.log(error);
});

To compare, building for Windows (NSIS) and Linux (AppImage) takes about 15 - 20 minutes.

[gmantri]

Hi @mmaietta. Thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it. So I asked a team member of mine to do the build on his Mac (which is a newer machine) and on his machine the build completed in 15 minutes (no notarization and uploading in storage, just build). So it looks like an issue with just my computer.

However let me keep this issue open for now. Over this weekend I will try to do what you suggested. I will report with my findings.

[mmaietta]

@gmantri try applying this patch to your project and report back with the results, preferably also with the compilation duration delta between with & without the patch. app-builder-lib+22.10.5.patch

diff --git a/node_modules/app-builder-lib/out/targets/ArchiveTarget.js b/node_modules/app-builder-lib/out/targets/ArchiveTarget.js
index 84c114b..2c156e1 100644
--- a/node_modules/app-builder-lib/out/targets/ArchiveTarget.js
+++ b/node_modules/app-builder-lib/out/targets/ArchiveTarget.js
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ class ArchiveTarget extends _core().Target {
       await (0, _archive().archive)(format, artifactPath, dirToArchive, archiveOptions);
 
       if (this.isWriteUpdateInfo && format === "zip") {
-        updateInfo = await (0, _differentialUpdateInfoBuilder().appendBlockmap)(artifactPath);
+        // updateInfo = await (0, _differentialUpdateInfoBuilder().appendBlockmap)(artifactPath);
       }
     }