Cursor Appimage Launcher

Cursor.com provides an AppImage for Linux. But it doesn't provide a launcher for it. So you have to manually run the AppImage file to start Cursor.

To create a launcher for Cursor, you can create a .desktop file.

  1. Download the AppImage file from Cursor.com.
  2. Rename it to cursor.AppImage.
  3. Place it in a directory, say ~/Applications.
  4. Make it executable by running chmod +x ~/Applications/cursor.AppImage.
  5. Download the Cursor icon from Cursor.com.
    1. In the website right click and view the Page Source.
    2. Look for the <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-48x48.png" sizes="48x48"/> tag.
    3. Copy the URL of the icon (https://www.cursor.com/favicon-48x48.png)
    4. Save it as cursor.png in the same directory as the AppImage file.
  6. Create a file named cursor.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications directory. Here is an example of a .desktop file for Cursor:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Cursor
Exec=home/user/Applications/cursor.AppImage
Icon=home/user/Applications/cursor.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development;
  1. If the icon is not showing up in the application menu, try running
xdg-desktop-menu install cursor.desktop
  1. If the icon is still not showing up, try running
xdg-desktop-menu forceupdate
  1. If the icon is showing up as a gear icon, then you will first have to do the following:

First run the appimage file to get the WM_CLASS value. Once it is open go to terminal and run

xprop WM_CLASS

Then click on the gear icon of the application and then click somewhere else in the application. You should see the WM_CLASS value in the terminal.

Then go back to the .desktop file and replace the WM_CLASS value with the value you saw in the terminal.

Example:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=LM Studio
Exec=/home/gapp/Applications/lmstudio.AppImage --no-sandbox
Icon=/home/gapp/Applications/lmstudio.png
StartupWMClass=LM Studio
Type=Application
Terminal=false