JBrowse desktop quick start

In this guide, we'll get the JBrowse desktop application running on your computer.

Installing JBrowse desktop#

Go to the download page and download the installer for your platform, or grab the latest release directly from GitHub releases.

Installing on Windows#

Download the latest Windows installer executable (.exe).

Double-click the installer to install and open JBrowse.

Installing on MacOS#

Download the latest MacOS release artifact (.dmg).

Open the .dmg, then drag JBrowse 2 to Applications.

Installing on Linux#

Download the latest Linux AppImage release (.AppImage).

Start it in one of two ways:

In the terminal#

Make the file executable:

# Make the AppImage file executable, only need to do this once
chmod  a+x jbrowse-desktop-*-linux.AppImage
# Run!
./jbrowse-desktop-*-linux.AppImage

In your file explorer#

Steps may vary by distribution:

1. Right-click on the AppImage file and select "Properties"
2. Go to the "Permissions" tab
3. Check "Allow executing file as program" and close

You can now double-click the AppImage file to launch JBrowse.

JBrowse Desktop start screen#

After starting JBrowse Desktop, you'll see a start screen:

Left panel — "Launch new session": open a custom genome (indexed FASTA or 2bit via open sequence file) or a pre-loaded genome from the "Quickstart list".

Right panel — "Recently opened sessions": sessions you've explicitly saved and autosaved ones. Click a session name to reopen it.

Special features on the start screen#

Converting a saved session into a quickstart entry#

To add your own genome to the quickstart list, check the session in "Recently opened sessions" and click the playlist-add icon (☰+) next to the trash can.

Selecting multiple entries from the quickstart panel#

Check multiple species in the quickstart list to open them in a combined session, useful for comparative genomics.

Next steps#

See the user guides for guides on track types, views, and UI features.