MEGA Desktop

MEGAsync relies on the MEGA C++ SDK to handle all functionality requiring communication with MEGA servers. The SDK provides the core capabilities of MEGA's client applications, including end-to-end encryption (User Controlled Encryption) and secure data transfers. If you are building custom tools or analyzing the security of MEGA products, you should use the SDK directly rather than attempting to replicate the protocol.

SDK Repository: https://github.com/meganz/sdk
License: Simplified (2-clause) BSD License.

MEGAsync uses two primary frameworks for its automated testing and unit testing suites:

1. Catch2: A modern, C++-native framework used for running automated tests on MEGAsync modules.
2. Trompeloeil: A thread-safe header-only mocking framework used for mocking in automated tests.

Once configured, use CMake to build the MEGAsync target. You can specify either Debug or Release configurations.

Example (Debug build):

cmake --build 'c:\mega\build-x64' --config Debug --target MEGAsync

The resulting executable will be located in .\src\MEGASync\<Configuration>\ (e.g., .\src\MEGASync\Debug\).

To build the MEGA Desktop application from source, refer to the platform-specific documentation:

• Windows: See README.win.md
• macOS: See README.mac.md
• Linux: See README.linux.md

For IDE-based development, you can use Qt Creator. After opening the root CMakeLists.txt, you must manually add the VCPKG_ROOT variable to the CMake configuration:

1. Open the CMakeLists.txt in Qt Creator.
2. In the "Initial Configuration" tab, add a new key: VCPKG_ROOT.
3. Set the value to your VCPKG root directory (e.g., ~/mega/vcpkg).
4. Click "Re-configure with Initial Parameters".

To develop the MEGA Desktop App on Windows, you need to install the following tools:

• Visual Studio 2019: Install the Community or Professional Edition via the Visual Studio Installer. You must include the Desktop Development with C++ workload.
• CMake: Download the Windows x64 Installer from cmake.org. It is recommended to add CMake to the system PATH during installation.
• Git: Download Git for Windows. During installation, select Checkout as-is, commit as-is to prevent line ending conversions and add Git tools to the user environment PATH.
• Windows Terminal: Use Windows Terminal with PowerShell for command-line builds.

Use CMake to configure the build. You must provide the path to your VCPKG installation using the -DVCPKG_ROOT flag. It is recommended to build in a separate directory outside of the source tree.

Required CMake arguments:

• -DVCPKG_ROOT: The absolute path to your VCPKG installation.
• -S: The path to the desktop application source repository.
• -B: The path to the directory where the build files will be generated.
• -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE: Set to Debug or Release.

cd ~/mega
cmake -DVCPKG_ROOT='~/mega/vcpkg' -S '~/mega/desktop' -B '~/mega/build_dir' -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug

MEGA uses Microsoft's VCPKG C++ Library Manager to manage third-party dependencies. You must clone the VCPKG repository to a local directory (e.g., c:\mega\) before building the project.

mkdir c:\mega\
cd c:\mega\
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg

MEGAsync uses Microsoft's VCPKG C++ Library Manager to handle third-party dependencies (including Qt). You must clone the VCPKG repository to a local directory before building the project.

mkdir ~/mega
cd ~/mega
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg

To use Qt Creator for development:

1. Open the CMakeLists.txt file located at the root of the repository.
2. Select your desired configuration and set the build path.
3. Configure VCPKG: In the "Initial Configuration" tab, add a new VCPKG_ROOT key for each configuration and set its value to your VCPKG root directory (e.g., ~/mega/vcpkg).
4. Click "Re-configure with Initial Parameters" and wait for the process to complete.