Native Install Methods

Pre-built binaries will be available on GitHub, Supported platforms are: Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Kavita’s releases are made to be used ‘out of the box’. This means there’s no need to install extra requirements

You have 2 options when it comes to running on Windows. You can install with Scoop or use the native builds posted in the steps below.

To install with Scoop, follow their instructions to get scoop onto your system.

Once scoop is installed, run:

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install kavita

If you want to run Kavita as a service then you can add:

scoop install shawl

Then see the optional step section once you have everything installed.

If scoop was installed without modifying the default settings then Kavita will now be installed at %userprofile%\scoop\apps\kavita\current\kavita.exe

Install Steps from Github:

Step 1

Go to https://github.com/Kareadita/Kavita/releases/latest and scroll down until you see the ‘assets’ section where there’s a list of files that you can download.

Download the kavita-win-x64 if you have a 64-bit system (preferred version - Windows 10 + Windows 11)

Download the kavita-win-x86 if you have a 32-bit system (usually older devices - Windows 7 and below)

Step 2

Unzip the archive to a writable directory using a program like 7z

🚫

Do not place it in Program Files/ or Program Files (x86)/

These are protected folders and will have permissions problems!

Step 3

Once the files are extracted to a location, run Kavita.exe to launch the server.

Step 4

Open a browser window and go to: http://localhost:5000/

Running as a service (Optional)

🚫

nssm is outdated and has problems with Windows 11. Do not use it.

We recommend using shawl to run Kavita as a service. Shawl is a “portable app”, you can simply download it and put it anywhere without going through an installer.

Once you have shawl installed then you can modify this command to create the service:

⚠️

This is an example! You need to modify the command to point to your files! Copying and pasting this command won’t work.

sc create Kavita binPath= "C:\path\to\shawl.exe run --name Kavita --cwd C:\your\folder\for\kavita -- C:\your\folder\for\kavita\Kavita.exe"

⚠️

No one on the dev team owns a Mac. These instructions are suggested by our users. If you want to help contribute to this list click “Help improve this page”!

Step 1

Go to https://github.com/Kareadita/Kavita/releases/latest and scroll down until you see the ‘assets’ section where there’s a list of files that you can download. The file you want is “kavita-osx-x64.tar.gz”.

Step 2

Unpack Kavita to your User Folder or folder of choice. For example, in Terminal:

cd ~
mv ~/Downloads/kavita-osx-x64.tar.gz ~
tar -xf kavita-osx-x64.tar.gz

Step 3

Make Kavita executable.

sudo chmod +x ~/Kavita/Kavita

Step 4

Disable Gatekeeper for Kavita’s folder so that Kavita and all .dll and .dylib files can be opened

xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine ~/Kavita/

Forgetting to disable Gatekeeper will prevent Kavita from running!

If you get this screen: Gatekeeper

That means the command wasn’t run on the right folder.

Step 5

export alias sqlite=sqlite3

Step 6

Start Kavita in Terminal. You need to launch Kavita from within the ~/Kavita folder, or else appsettings.json will fail to be acquired.

cd ~/Kavita
./Kavita

Step 7

Open a browser window and go to: http://localhost:5000/

Step 1

Go to https://github.com/Kareadita/Kavita/releases/latest and scroll down until you see the ‘assets’ section where there’s a list of files that you can download

Step 2

Unzip the archive to a writable directory with the command tar -xzf kavita-linux-{arch}.tar.gz

Step 3

Use chmod and chown commands so Kavita can write to the directory you placed it in.

Step 4

Run the Kavita executable. Usually ./Kavita

Step 5

Open a browser window and go to: http://localhost:5000/

Setup Kavita as a service (Optional)

To have Kavita start in the background at boot, you may install it as a systemd service. Save the following to a file named kavita.service in the directory /etc/systemd/system

This file is an example and assumes you have installed Kavita in /opt/Kavita and with running it as a separate user. Make sure to customize it to your system.

[Unit]
Description=Kavita Server
After=network.target
 
[Service]
User=kavita
Group=kavita
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/opt/Kavita
ExecStart=/opt/Kavita/Kavita
TimeoutStopSec=20
KillMode=process
Restart=on-failure
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Once the file is saved you can run systemctl start kavita.service to test if it starts correctly. If does, run systemctl enable kavita.service and it will start at boot for your system.

Getting Started Docker Install