Installation

Download

Visit the download page to get the latest version of Macro Studio for your platform. Builds are signed and notarized on macOS and code-signed on Windows. Linux AppImages are distributed unsigned — there’s no equivalent of Apple Developer or Microsoft Trusted Signing infrastructure on Linux.

macOS

Apple Silicon required. Macro Studio for macOS is an arm64-only build — it runs on M1, M2, M3, M4 and later Macs. Intel Macs are not supported; launching the .app on an Intel Mac shows “This application is not supported on this Mac.” If you’re on an Intel Mac, contact support so we can refund or hold your order.

1. Download the .dmg file from the download page.
2. Open the disk image and drag Macro Studio to your Applications folder.
3. Launch Macro Studio from Applications. The first time you open it, macOS may show a Gatekeeper warning — right-click the app icon and choose Open to confirm.

Windows

1. Download the .exe installer.
2. Run the installer.
3. Launch Macro Studio from your Start menu or the desktop shortcut.

Windows may interrupt you at step 1 or step 2 with a security warning. These warnings are about the installer being new, not about anything found inside it — see below for how to get past each one.

“Isn’t commonly downloaded”

Your browser may refuse to save the installer, with a message like “macro-studio-2026.08.13-windows.exe isn’t commonly downloaded. Make sure you trust macro-studio-2026.08.13-windows.exe before you open it.”

If your download finished without a warning, skip ahead to “Windows protected your PC” — that’s the one you’ll meet when you run the installer. The steps below are Microsoft Edge’s, and in our testing Chrome on Windows didn’t hold the download back at all.

That’s Microsoft Defender SmartScreen. It partly judges a file by how many people have downloaded it already, and every Macro Studio release is a brand-new file that starts at zero. So each new version gets flagged for a while, and stops being flagged as more people install it. Nothing is wrong with your download.

Here’s how to keep the file.

1. Open your browser’s Downloads list (Ctrl + J in Edge).

2. Hover over the blocked download. Three dots (…) appear next to the trash icon. Click them, then click Keep.

   

3. A confirmation box appears. Before you go further, read the Publisher line. Edge prints the full certificate details there, so it reads something like US, Texas, Austin, Macro Studio, Macro Studio — what matters is that Macro Studio appears in it. That line comes from the file’s code signature, so it tells you this really is the file we signed. If Macro Studio isn’t there, don’t keep the file. Tell us instead and we’ll sort it out.

4. Click the small arrow on the right-hand end of the Delete button, then choose Keep anyway.

   

The installer is now saved in your Downloads folder, and you can run it.

“Windows protected your PC”

When you run the installer, a blue box may appear saying “Windows protected your PC”, with only a Don’t run button. That’s Microsoft Defender SmartScreen again, now at install time. Every new release starts with no track record, so it gets flagged for a while — it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with the file you downloaded.

There’s no Run anyway button yet — that’s the part that stops people. It appears once you click More info.

1. Click More info. The box expands to show an App line and a Publisher line, and a Run anyway button appears next to Don’t run.

   

2. Read the Publisher line. Like the download box, it shows the full certificate details — US, Texas, Austin, Macro Studio, Macro Studio. What matters is that Macro Studio appears in it. If it doesn’t, don’t run the file. Tell us instead.

3. Click Run anyway.

Antivirus tools — McAfee in particular — sometimes quarantine the installer for the same reason. Choose Keep or Allow when prompted, or restore the file from the tool’s quarantine list.

If Macro Studio isn’t on the publisher line, or you’re stuck on any of this, contact support before you run anything — send us a screenshot of what you’re seeing and we’ll walk you through it.

Linux

Macro Studio for Linux ships as an AppImage — a single self-contained file that runs on most modern distros without a separate installer. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04+, Fedora 36+, Arch, Debian 12+, and other distros with glibc 2.35 or newer.

1. Download the .AppImage file from the download page.
2. Move it to a permanent location (e.g., ~/Applications/) so it doesn’t get deleted when you clean up Downloads.
3. Make it executable: right-click → Properties → Permissions → tick Allow executing file as program. Or from a terminal: chmod +x macro-studio-*.AppImage.
4. Double-click to launch.

Troubleshooting

“AppImages require FUSE to run” / libfuse.so.2 error: Ubuntu 24.04+ and Debian 13 dropped libfuse2 from default installs. Install it:

• Ubuntu / Debian: sudo apt install libfuse2
• Fedora: sudo dnf install fuse-libs
• Arch: sudo pacman -S fuse2

Nothing happens on double-click: the file isn’t marked executable yet — see step 3 above. Some file managers offer a “Run” option in the right-click menu that prompts to set the executable bit for you.

Ubuntu 24.04+ AppArmor restrictions: AppArmor on Ubuntu 24.04+ can block AppImage’s sandboxing in some configurations. Workaround:

./macro-studio-*.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run

Activating your license

When you first launch Macro Studio after purchase, an activation dialog appears automatically.

1. Enter the email address you used at checkout — activation checks that it matches.
2. Paste the license key from the email we sent you (from [email protected] — check your junk folder if you can’t find it). Paddle’s payment receipt does not contain the key.
3. Click Activate.

Your license is usually ready straight away. If the dialog says it can’t find your license, wait a few minutes and click Activate again before assuming the key is wrong — occasionally a purchase takes a little longer to finish registering on our side.

If it says it couldn’t reach the licensing server, that’s your connection or ours — not a problem with your key. Activation already tries a few times on its own before showing you that message, so check that you’re online and click Activate again.

After activation, the app launches into Library view and remembers the license — you won’t see this dialog again on this machine unless you sign out or move the license.

Each license activates on up to 3 machines (for example, your desktop and laptop). Activations on a 4th machine will be refused — contact support if you need to move a license to a new machine and we’ll free up a slot.

Updating

Macro Studio checks for updates once per day at launch (toggle it in Preferences). When a new version is available, a small dialog offers to install it. You can also trigger a check manually from File → Check for Updates….

The update check itself sends nothing about you or your work — it’s a request for the latest version manifest, with no usage data attached. (Separately, Macro Studio can share anonymous performance statistics about stacking runs, but that is off by default and opt-in — see Support.)

How the update installs depends on your platform.

Windows

Macro Studio downloads the signed installer and runs it for you — you don’t need to visit the download page.

Before launching anything, it verifies the downloaded bytes against a SHA-256 checksum published in the version manifest. If they don’t match, the file is discarded and you get a plain “the download was incomplete, please try again” — so a truncated or corrupted download fails cleanly and retryably, instead of getting halfway through installing and reporting a cryptic corrupted-file error.

macOS

Updates go through Sparkle, the standard macOS update framework. It downloads and installs in place, then relaunches.

If an update fails right after “Extracting update”: macOS 26.3 has a bug that can stop Sparkle’s helper process from starting, which aborts the install. Macro Studio detects this specific failure and shows a dialog asking you to restart your Mac and try again — a restart clears the condition. You may see Sparkle’s own more generic “try again later” alert alongside it; the restart advice is the one to act on. Downloading and installing manually from the download page also works.

Linux

The AppImage updates itself in place. You’ll see a progress dialog while it downloads (typically 30–60 seconds, longer if you’re jumping several versions), then a prompt to Restart Macro Studio so the new version takes effect. Dismiss the prompt and you’ll pick it up on your next launch instead.

If the update fails, the dialog reports why and offers to open the download page so you can grab the AppImage manually.

Next Steps

Ready to stack your first image? Follow the Quick Start guide.