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Frequently Asked Questions

What versions of Python are supported?

Python 3.10 or higher.

What platforms does Briefcase support?

Briefcase currently has support for:

  • macOS (producing DMG files, or raw .app files)
  • Linux (producing system packages, AppImage files or Flatpaks)
  • Windows (producing MSI installers)
  • iOS (producing Xcode projects)
  • Android (producing Gradle projects)

Support for other some other operating systems (e.g., tvOS, watchOS, WearOS, and the web) are on our road map.

Briefcase's platform support is built on a plugin system, so if you want to add support for a custom platform, you can do so; or, you can contribute the backend to Briefcase itself.

How do I detect if my app is running in a Briefcase-packaged container?

Briefcase adds a PEP566 metadata file when it installs your app's code. The metadata can be retrieved at runtime as described in the Accessing Briefcase packaging metadata at runtime how-to. You can determine if your app was packaged with Briefcase by testing for the existence of the Briefcase-Version tag:

in_briefcase = 'Briefcase-Version' in metadata

Can I use third-party Python packages in my app?

Yes! Briefcase uses pip to install third-party packages into your app bundle. As long as the package is available on PyPI, or you can provide a wheel file for the package, it can be added to the requires declaration in your pyproject.toml file and used by your app at runtime.

If the package is pure-Python (i.e., it does not contain a binary library), that's all you need to do.

If the package contains a binary component, you'll need to ensure that a binary wheel is available for the platform you're targeting: