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Lemon wiki

Install Lemon Studio

You download one file from the download page and run it. Lemon Studio needs no account.

There are two kinds of build:

  • Alpha is the one to start with.
  • Nightly has the newest changes, built every night the code moves, and is the least tested.

Each one updates itself only to newer builds of its own kind.

System You need The file
Windows Windows 10 or 11, x64 LemonStudio-<version>-windows-x86_64.exe
Linux x64, on X11 or a Wayland desktop LemonStudio-<version>-linux-x86_64.AppImage
macOS macOS 11 or newer, Apple silicon LemonStudio-<version>-macos-aarch64.zip

The builds aren’t signed yet, so your system may stop them the first time.

Windows

Section titled “Windows”

Run the .exe. If SmartScreen says it doesn’t recognise it, choose More info, then Run anyway.

Keep the file in a folder you can write to, so it can update itself.

Linux

Section titled “Linux”

Make the AppImage executable, in its file properties or in a terminal, then run it:

Terminal window
chmod +x LemonStudio-*.AppImage

macOS

Section titled “macOS”

Lemon Studio isn’t notarized by Apple, so macOS stops it the first time.

  1. Unzip it and move Lemon Studio.app to Applications.
  2. Open it once.
  3. Go to System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security and choose Open Anyway.

On macOS 14 and earlier you can also right-click the app, choose Open, then Open again. Or use Terminal:

Terminal window
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Lemon Studio.app"

Updates that Lemon Studio installs itself don’t ask again.

Updates

Section titled “Updates”

When it starts, Lemon Studio checks for a newer build. If it finds one, it offers it in a box:

  • Install and restart asks about unsaved changes, closes, puts the new version in place and starts it. The next start tells you how it went.
  • Skip this version stops offering that one.
  • Later asks again another time.

Settings ▸ General ▸ Updates has two switches: Automatically check for updates and Automatically download program updates. With downloads off, the first button reads Download and install. HELP ▸ Check for updates checks whenever you like.

A copy that can’t replace itself says so instead of offering the update:

  • On Linux, one that isn’t running from its AppImage.
  • On macOS, an app opened from where it was downloaded. Move it to Applications first.
  • On any system, a program in a folder you can’t write to.

Where your settings live

Section titled “Where your settings live”

Settings, themes and presets are kept in one folder. Settings ▸ File ▸ User data folder shows it.

System Folder
Windows %APPDATA%\Lemon Studio
Linux $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Lemon Studio, usually ~/.config/Lemon Studio
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/Lemon Studio

Plugins for other DAWs

Section titled “Plugins for other DAWs”

Lemon Studio has its own plugins built in, so you only need this download to use them in other DAWs. It’s a zip for each system, LemonStudio-Plugins-<version>-<platform>.zip, with VST3 and CLAP versions.

  1. Unzip it.
  2. Copy the contents of the VST3 folder to your VST3 folder, and the contents of the CLAP folder to your CLAP folder. The zip’s README.txt lists where those are.
  3. On macOS, also run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine on the copied plugins, or DAWs won’t load them.

Build it yourself

Section titled “Build it yourself”

You can also build from source. A copy built that way never updates itself.

Section titled “Related”