This page covers running and installing HatchKeeper on different platforms. Check out the Building section for information on compiling.

When you close the main HatchKeeper frame, HatchKeeper continues to run in the background so it can show batch notificaions when necessary. You can avoid this by clicking the Exit button in the toolbar and selecting Yes. You can also use the taskbar icon and select Completely Exit.

Running On Linux

Under Linux HatchKeeper is avalible as an AppImage. Since we no longer distribute the 32-bit binary and the AppImage might not work on older distributions you might need to build HatchKeeper from source.

It is also possible to extract the HatchKeeper AppImage with ./*.AppImage –appimage-extract, this will work as a portable app or you can manually install it.

To use as a portable app just extract the AppImage and give HatchKeeper execute permission. Make sure that .HatchKeeper_Data_* has read and write permission.

To manually install, copy the HatchKeeper executable to /usr/bin and copy .HatchKeeper_Data_* to your home folder. Make sure you have the right permissions.

Autostarting HatchKeeper to run in the background for notifications is left entirely up to the user. This is because of the huge number of different choices. Usually the desktop makes it easy to set up.

Running On Mac

To install, right-click the .dmg installer. Select open and then select open in the warning dialog. In Finder drag HatchKeeper to the Applications shortcut in the same directory.

To uninstall, Navigate to /Applications with Finder, Right- Click HatchKeeper. Select Move To Trash.

To set HatchKeeper to start at login: Open HatchKeeper, right- click the HatchKeeper icon in the Dock, select Options > Start At Login.

Running On Windows

HatchKeeper is distributed as an installer or a self-extracting portable archive.

To install, run the installer, then launch from the Start Menu. Auto-start will automatically be set up.

For the portable version, run the self-extracting .exe file to extract to the location of your choice. Double-click HatchKeeper.exe in the extracted folder to run the app. Auto start will not be set up, you will need to do that yourself, you’ll have to copy a shortcut of HatchKeeper.exe to your system startup folder. Press Windows Key + R and type shell:startup, hit enter, copy a shortcut of HatchKeeper.exe into this folder and you’re all set.

Before uninstalling HatchKeeper on Windows, make sure to exit HatchKeeper completely before running the uninstaller.