Raspberry Pi Imaging Utility
- To install on Raspberry Pi OS, use
sudo apt update && sudo apt install rpi-imager. - Download the latest version for Windows, macOS and Ubuntu from the Raspberry Pi downloads page.
Please see our official documentation.
- Install the build dependencies (Debian used as an example):
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends build-essential cmake git libgnutls28-devgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-imagersudo ./built-qt.shThis will build and install the version of Qt preferred for Raspberry Pi Imager into /opt/Qt/. You must use sudo for the installation step to complete.
./create_appimage.sh
./Raspberry_Pi_Imager-*.AppImage- Get the Qt online installer from: https://www.qt.io/download-open-source
- During installation, choose Qt 6.9 with Mingw64 64-bit toolchain.
- For building the installer, install Inno Setup scriptable install system: https://jrsoftware.org/isdl.php
- Install Visual Studio Code (or a derivative) and the Qt Extension Pack.
- It is assumed you already have a valid code signing certificate, and the Windows 10 Kit (SDK) installed.
Building Raspberry Pi Imager on Windows is best done with Visual Studio Code (or a derivative).
- Open Visual Studio Code, and select 'Clone repo'. Give it the git url of this project.
- Open the CMake plugin settings, and set the following Configure Args:
-DQt6_ROOT=C:\Qt\6.9.0\mingw_64- or the equivalent path you installed Qt 6.9 to.-DMINGW64_ROOT=C:\Qt\Tools\mingw1310_64- or the equivalent path you installed mingw64 to.-DENABLE_INNO_INSTALLER=ON- to enable the Inno Setup installer, rather than the legacy NSIS installer.-DIMAGER_SIGNED_APP=ON- to enable code signing for redistribution.
- In the CMake plugin tab, ensure you have selected the
MinSizeRelvariant if you intend to distribute to others. - In the CMake plugin tab, select the 'inno_installer' target, and build it
- Your resultant installer will be located in
%WORKSPACE%\build\installer
- Get the Qt online installer from: https://www.qt.io/download-open-source
- During installation, choose Qt 6.9.
- Install Visual Studio Code (or a derivative), and the Qt Extension Pack.
- It is assumed you have an Apple developer subscription, and already have a "Developer ID" code signing certificate for distribution outside the Mac Store.
Building Raspberry Pi Imager on Windows is best done with Visual Studio Code (or a derivative).
- Open Visual Studio Code, and select 'Clone repo'. Give it the git url of this project.
- Open the CMake plugin settings, and set the following Configure Args:
-DQt6_ROOT=/opt/Qt6/6.9.0/gcc_arm64- or the equivalent path you installed Qt 6.9 to.-DIMAGER_SIGNED_APP=ON- to enable code signing.-DIMAGER_SIGNING_IDENTITY=$cn- to specify the Developer ID Certificate Common Name.-DIMAGER_NOTARIZE_APP=ON- to enable automatic notarization for distribution to others.-DIMAGER_NOTARIZE_KEYCHAIN_PROFILE=notarytool-password- specify the name of the keychain item containing your Apple ID credentials for notarizing.
- In the CMake plugin tab, ensure you have selected the
MinSizeRelvariant if you intend to distribute to others. - In the CMake plugin tab, select the 'rpi_imager' target, and build it
- Your resultant DMG will be located at
$WORKSPACE\build\Raspberry Pi Imager-$VERSION.dmg
The embedded build runs under a minimalistic Linux distribution compiled by buildroot. To build:
- You must be running a Linux system, and have the buildroot dependencies installed as listed in the buildroot manual: https://buildroot.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#requirement
- Run:
cd rpi-imager/embedded
./build.shThe result will be in the "output" directory. The files can be copied to a FAT32 formatted SD card, and inserted in a Pi for testing. If you would like to build a (signed) netboot image there are tools for that at: https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot/tree/master/tools
If the application is started with "--repo [your own URL]" it will use a custom image repository. So can simply create another 'start menu shortcut' to the application with that parameter to use the application with your own images.
In order to understand usage of the application (e.g. uptake of Raspberry Pi Imager versions and which images and operating systems are most popular) when using the default image repository, the URL, operating system name and category (if present) of a selected image are sent along with the running version of Raspberry Pi Imager, your operating system, CPU architecture, locale and Raspberry Pi revision (if applicable) to https://rpi-imager-stats.raspberrypi.com by downloadstatstelemetry.cpp.
This web service is hosted by Heroku and only stores an incrementing counter using a Redis Sorted Set for each URL, operating system name and category per day in the eu-west-1 region and does not associate any personal data with those counts. This allows us to query the number of downloads over time and nothing else.
The last 1,500 requests to the service are logged for one week before expiring as this is the minimum log retention period for Heroku.
On Windows, you can opt out of telemetry by disabling it in the Registry:
reg add "HKCU\Software\Raspberry Pi\Imager" /v telemetry /t REG_DWORD /d 0On Linux, run rpi-imager --disable-telemetry or add the following to ~/.config/Raspberry Pi/Imager.conf:
[General]
telemetry=falseOn macOS, disable it by editing the property list for the application:
defaults write org.raspberrypi.Imager.plist telemetry -bool NOThe main code of the Imaging Utility is made available under the terms of the Apache license. See license.txt and files in "src/dependencies" folder for more information about the various open source licenses that apply to the third-party dependencies used such as Qt, libarchive, drivelist, mountutils and libcurl. For the embedded (netboot) build see also "embedded/legal-info" for more information about the extra system software included in that.