Packaging app for Windows

Instructions for packaging a Flet app into a Windows application.

Info

This guide provides detailed Windows-specific information. Complementary and more general information is available here.

Alternative: flet pack

For a quicker, PyInstaller-based way to package desktop apps — no Visual Studio or Flutter toolchain required — see flet pack.

Prerequisites

Visual Studio (2022 or 2026) is required with the Desktop development with C++ workload installed.

Follow this guide for instructions on downloading and installing correct Visual Studio components for Flutter desktop development.

Note

This command can be run on Windows only.

Builds a Windows application.

Symptom	Cause and fix
`Building with plugins requires symlink support`	Windows Developer Mode is off — run `start ms-settings:developers`, enable it (see this guide), and rebuild.
`Unable to find suitable Visual Studio toolchain`	The Desktop development with C++ workload is missing — install it with the Visual Studio Installer (see Prerequisites).