makeself ☆

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Description:
Generates a self-extracting compressed tar archive

Type: Formula | Latest Version: 2.7.1@0 | Tracked Since: Dec 10, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Developer tools

Tags: archive packaging shell distribution installer

Install: brew install makeself

About:
Makeself is a shell script that generates a self-extracting tar.gz archive. It bundles multiple files and a small extraction script into a single executable file. This allows for the easy distribution of software or data packages that require no special tools to unpack, just a standard Unix shell.

Key Features:

Generates single-file, self-extracting archives
Supports compression (gzip, zstd, bzip2, lz4)
Includes integrity checks via embedded checksums
Allows pre/post-extraction scripts for automation
Creates portable shell scripts, no client-side dependencies

Use Cases:

Distributing software installers or source code bundles
Creating portable application packages
Automating data set delivery in scripts

Alternatives:

sharutils – Older toolset for creating shell archives; makeself is generally more modern and feature-rich.

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Dec 10, 2025 3:18am		0	VERSION_BUMP	3620bc5e