Install Front for your teammates on macOS

💡 This installation method applies to a subset of macOS users that may require their admins to use this specific type of installation. Please review the article to determine if this is the installation type you need.

Overview

Teams that use macOS and require a machine-wide installation for all users to access Front, as opposed to each user installing onto their own profile, will need an IT administrator to deploy the Front desktop app. Some cases that call for this installation method may be:

An admin is provisioning Front on a new desktop where the intended user’s account hasn’t been created yet.
An admin is remotely deploying Front using systems management software running in a system account where it is easier to install to /Applications, and permissions cannot be set up such that the application is owned by the user logging into the machine.
An admin is provisioning Front on a shared desktop where multiple users are expected to use the application.

Installation methods

The Front desktop app can be installed to a user’s /Applications or ~/Applications folder. Details on each installation method:

/Applications	~/Applications
All users on the machine can use the same installation of the Front app Users must be administrators to apply app updates App updates apply to all users on the machine	Each user on a shared machine has their own installation of the Front app Users don’t need to be administrators to apply app updates App updates made to one instance of the Front app do not affect other users on the same machine

Installation options

Once you’ve decided the installation method, you can deploy the Front app using a .pkg installer or a mobile device management (MDM) solution.

.pkg installers

We have .pkg installers available at:

Option 1: Install the .pkg installer to /Applications via sudo installer -pkg /path/to/Front-arm64.pkg -target /

Option 2: Install the .pkg installer to /Users/$USER/Applications via installer -pkg /path/to/Front-arm64.pkg -target CurrentUserHomeDirectory

Mac App Store

We offer the app in the Mac App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/front-for-desktop/id6444014287, which can be used to deploy the app with a mobile device management (MDM) solution.

Apply automatic updates

If automatic updates are enabled, users will be prompted to restart the app to apply the update.

An IT administrator will need to set up permissions on the application files to allow users to overwrite them when a new version of the app is available.

Manage automatic updates

An administrator can disable or re-enable automatic updates on a per-user basis using the following terminal commands:

Disable automatic updates:

defaults write /Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/com.frontapp.Front DisableAutoUpdate -bool YES

Re-enable automatic updates:

defaults write /Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/com.frontapp.Front DisableAutoUpdate -bool NO

App release updates

If you disable app updates as outlined above or just want to stay informed, check out our Desktop Release Notes.