MacOS Desktop Version

This article introduces how to download, install and use ComfyUI Desktop for MacOS

ComfyUI Desktop is a standalone installation version that can be installed like regular software. It supports quick installation and automatic configuration of the Python environment and dependencies, and supports one-click import of existing ComfyUI settings, models, workflows, and files.

ComfyUI Desktop is an open source project, please visit the full code here.

ComfyUI Desktop (MacOS) only supports Apple Silicon

This tutorial will guide you through the software installation process and explain related configuration details.

As ComfyUI Desktop is still in Beta status, the actual installation process may change

ComfyUI Desktop (MacOS) Download

Please click the button below to download the installation package for MacOS ComfyUI Desktop

Download for MacOS

ComfyUI Desktop Installation Steps

Double-click the downloaded installation package file. As shown in the image, drag the ComfyUI application into the Applications folder following the arrow

If your folder shows as below with a prohibition sign on the icon after opening the installation package, it means your current system version is not compatible with ComfyUI Desktop

Then find the ComfyUI icon in Launchpad and click it to enter ComfyUI initialization settings

ComfyUI Desktop Initialization Process

1. Start Screen

   Normal Start

   

   Click Get Started to begin initialization

2. Select GPU

   

   The three options are:

   1. MPS (Recommended): Metal Performance Shaders (MPS) is an Apple framework that uses GPUs to accelerate computing and machine learning tasks on Apple devices, supporting frameworks like PyTorch.
   2. Manual Configuration: You need to manually install and configure the python runtime environment. Don’t select this unless you know how to configure
   3. Enable CPU Mode: For developers and special cases only. Don’t select this unless you’re sure you need it

   Unless there are special circumstances, please select MPS as shown and click Next to proceed

3. Install location

   

   In this step, you will select the installation location for the following related content of ComfyUI:

   • Python Environment
   • Models Model Files
   • Custom Nodes Custom Nodes

   Recommendations:

   • Please create a separate empty folder as the installation directory for ComfyUI
   • Please ensure that the disk has at least 5G of disk space to ensure the normal installation of ComfyUI Desktop

   Not all files are installed in this directory, some files will be located in the MacOS system directory, you can refer to the uninstallation section of this guide to complete the uninstallation of the ComfyUI desktop version
4. Migrate from Existing Installation (Optional)

   

   In this step you can migrate your existing ComfyUI installation content to ComfyUI Desktop. Select your existing ComfyUI installation directory, and the installer will automatically recognize:

   • User Files
   • Models: Will not be copied, only linked with desktop version
   • Custom Nodes: Nodes will be reinstalled

   Don’t worry, this step won’t copy model files. You can check or uncheck options as needed. Click Next to continue

5. Desktop Settings

   

   These are preference settings:

   1. Automatic Updates: Whether to set automatic updates when ComfyUI updates are available
   2. Usage Metrics: If enabled, we will collect anonymous usage data to help improve ComfyUI
   3. Mirror Settings: Since the program needs internet access to download Python and complete environment installation, if you see a red ❌ during installation indicating this may cause installation failure, please follow the steps below

   Expand the mirror settings to find the specific failing mirror. In this screenshot the error is Python Install Mirror failure.

   For different mirror errors, you can refer to the following content to try to manually find different mirrors and replace them

   The following cases mainly apply to users in China.

   Python Installation Mirror

   If the default mirror is unavailable, please try using the mirror below.

   https://python-standalone.org/mirror/astral-sh/python-build-standalone
   

   If you need to find other alternative GitHub mirror addresses, please look for and construct a mirror address pointing to the releases of the python-build-standalone repository.

   https://github.com/astral-sh/python-build-standalone/releases/download
   

   Build a link in the following pattern

   https://xxx/astral-sh/python-build-standalone/releases/download
   

   PyPI Mirror

   • Alibaba Cloud: https://mirrors.aliyun.com/pypi/simple/
   • Tencent Cloud: https://mirrors.cloud.tencent.com/pypi/simple/
   • University of Science and Technology of China: https://pypi.mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/simple/
   • Shanghai Jiao Tong University: https://pypi.sjtu.edu.cn/simple/

   Torch Mirror

   • Aliyun: https://mirrors.aliyun.com/pytorch-wheels/cu121/
6. Complete the installation

   If everything is correct, the installer will complete and automatically enter the ComfyUI Desktop interface, then the installation is successful

First Image Generation

After successful installation, you can refer to the section below to start your ComfyUI journey~

First Image Generation

This tutorial will guide you through your first model installation and text-to-image generation

How to Update ComfyUI Desktop

Currently, ComfyUI Desktop updates use automatic detection updates, please ensure that automatic updates are enabled in the settings

You can also choose to manually check for available updates in the Menu —> Help —> Check for Updates

Adding External Model Paths

If you have models stored in other locations on your computer outside the ComfyUI installation directory, you can add them to ComfyUI by configuring the extra_models_config.yaml file.

For ComfyUI Desktop, this file is located at:

• On Windows: C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\ComfyUI\extra_models_config.yaml
• On macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/ComfyUI/extra_models_config.yaml
• On Linux: ~/.config/ComfyUI/extra_models_config.yaml

For detailed instructions, see Models documentation

How to Uninstall ComfyUI Desktop

For ComfyUI Desktop, you can directly delete ComfyUI from the Applications folder

If you want to completely remove all ComfyUI Desktop files, you can manually delete these folders:

• /Users/Library/Application Support/ComfyUI

The above operations will not delete your following folders. If you need to delete corresponding files, please delete manually:

• models files
• custom nodes
• input/output directories

Troubleshooting

​Error identification​

If installation fails, you should see the following screen

It is recommended to take these steps to find the error cause:

1. Click Show Terminal to view error output
2. Click Open Logs to view installation logs
3. Visit official forum to search for error reports
4. Click Reinstall to try reinstalling

Before submitting feedback, it’s recommended to provide the error output and log files to tools like GPT

As shown above, ask the GPT for the cause of the corresponding error, or remove ComfyUI completely and retry the installation.

Feedback Installation Failure

If you encounter any errors during installation, please check if there are similar error reports or submit errors to us through:

• Github Issues: https://github.com/Comfy-Org/desktop/issues
• Comfy Official Forum: https://forum.comfy.org/

When submitting error reports, please ensure you include the following logs and configuration files to help us locate and investigate the issue:

1. Log Files

Filename	Description	Location
main.log	Contains logs related to desktop application and server startup from the Electron process
comfyui.log	Contains logs related to ComfyUI normal operation, such as core ComfyUI process terminal output

2. Configuration Files

Filename	Description	Location
extra_model_paths.yaml	Contains additional paths where ComfyUI will search for models and custom nodes
config.json	Contains application configuration. This file should not be edited directly