Installation

dotsync is a single static binary for macOS and Linux on amd64 and arm64. At runtime it needs git 2.20 or newer, and nothing else.

Install

Install script (recommended)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pungoyal/dotsync/main/install.sh | sh

The script:

1. finds the latest release, and the archive for your OS and CPU
2. checks the archive’s SHA-256 checksum against the release’s checksums.txt
3. checks its signed build provenance with gh attestation verify, if the GitHub CLI is installed and logged in
4. installs dotsync to ~/.local/bin
5. re-installs the background agent, if this machine already has one, so it matches the new version

It needs curl or wget, and sha256sum or shasum. These variables change what it does:

Variable	Default	Effect
DOTSYNC_VERSION	latest	release to install, e.g. v0.5.0
DOTSYNC_BIN_DIR	~/.local/bin	where to install
DOTSYNC_REQUIRE_ATTESTATION	0	1 refuses to install unless the provenance check passes

For example

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pungoyal/dotsync/main/install.sh | DOTSYNC_REQUIRE_ATTESTATION=1 sh

Homebrew

On macOS or Linux:

brew install pungoyal/tap/dotsync

The formula installs the same release archive as the install script, pinned by its SHA-256 checksum, and the dotsync(1) man page. Homebrew keeps dotsync up to date: use brew upgrade dotsync.

apt (Ubuntu, Debian)

Add the signed dotsync repository, then install the package:

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://pungoyal.github.io/dotsync/apt/dotsync.asc | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/dotsync.asc >/dev/null
curl -fsSL https://pungoyal.github.io/dotsync/apt/dotsync.sources | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dotsync.sources >/dev/null
sudo apt update && sudo apt install dotsync

To check the key before trusting it, run gpg --show-keys /etc/apt/keyrings/dotsync.asc. It should print the fingerprint FD8B DCCB 9FAE 77A7 03F3 7154 3EC2 40F3 0AB4 EE33, which is also listed in the project’s security policy.

The repository serves the latest release for amd64 and arm64, and apt trusts its key for this repository only (Signed-By). The package installs /usr/bin/dotsync and the man page, and depends on git. apt keeps dotsync up to date along with your other packages. It’s tested on Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, and Debian 12 and 13.

To install without adding the repository, download dotsync_<version>_<arch>.deb from the latest release, verify it, and run sudo apt install ./dotsync_*.deb. To update, install the next release’s .deb the same way.

go install

With Go 1.23 or newer:

go install github.com/pungoyal/dotsync/cmd/dotsync@latest

The binary goes to $(go env GOBIN), or to $(go env GOPATH)/bin (usually ~/go/bin) if GOBIN isn’t set.

Release archive

1. Download dotsync_<version>_<os>_<arch>.tar.gz from the latest release. <os> is darwin or linux; <arch> is amd64 or arm64.

2. Optionally, verify it.

3. Extract the binary and put it on your PATH:

   tar -xzf dotsync_*_darwin_arm64.tar.gz dotsync
   install -m 0755 dotsync ~/.local/bin/

From source

With Go 1.23 or newer:

git clone https://github.com/pungoyal/dotsync
cd dotsync
make build        # writes bin/dotsync

Put it on your PATH

Homebrew and apt put dotsync on your PATH already. Otherwise, if dotsync version says command not found, add ~/.local/bin to your PATH:

zsh

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc && exec zsh

bash

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc && exec bash

fish

fish_add_path ~/.local/bin

Check it works

$ dotsync version
dotsync 0.5.0 (ed63c37, 2026-09-21T06:18:53Z) go1.27.1 darwin/arm64

That’s the version, the commit it was built from and that commit’s date, the Go version, and the platform.

Tip

dotsync init copies the binary to ~/.local/bin/dotsync, and that copy is the one the background agent runs, so a dotsync elsewhere on your PATH is fine. The exception is a Homebrew or apt install: the agent runs the package’s own binary, so the package manager’s upgrades reach it.

Update

If you installed with Homebrew, run brew upgrade dotsync; with apt, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade. dotsync update doesn’t replace a binary a package manager owns: it tells you that command instead. Otherwise:

dotsync update           # install the latest release: checksum and provenance verified
dotsync update --check   # only say whether there's a newer one

update replaces the binary you ran and, if it’s a different file, the agent’s copy in ~/.local/bin. If a background agent is installed, it then re-installs it with the new version, so there’s nothing else to do. It only replaces a binary after the checksum matches. dotsync doctor also tells you when an update is available.

Versions before 0.3.0 don’t have update: run the install script once more to get it. To go back to an earlier release, dotsync update --version v0.4.0.

If the download stalls

With curl, the install script shows a progress bar, abandons a transfer that stays below 1 KB/s for 20 seconds, retries, and finally tries once more over IPv4. If it still fails, test your connection to GitHub’s download host, which is separate from github.com:

curl -v -o /dev/null https://github.com/pungoyal/dotsync/releases/latest/download/checksums.txt

If that hangs too (often a broken IPv6 route, or a proxy), try it again with curl -4, or download the archive from the releases page in a browser.

Next

Continue with the quick start.