How To Use An App Without Updating

Postman is available on the web at go.postman.co/home and as a native desktop app for Mac, Windows (32-bit / 64-bit), and Linux (64-bit) operating systems.

To get the latest version of the Postman desktop app, visit the download page and select Download for your platform.

Installing Postman on the desktop
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Using Postman on the web
- Browser requirements
- Installing the Postman desktop agent
- Web limitations
Updating Postman
Chrome app (deprecated)
- Migrating to the native app
Using Postman behind a firewall
Troubleshooting your Postman installation
Next steps

Note that the Postman team only tests, fixes bugs, and provides support for the app on Mac, Windows, Linux, and the web.

Installing Postman on Mac

Download and unzip the app using the built-in Archive Utility app. Double-click Postman. When prompted, move the file to your Applications folder—this will ensure that future updates can be installed correctly.

The minimum OS version supported is macOS 10.11 (El Capitan).

You may encounter a "Library not loaded" error if you attempt to unzip and install Postman using a third-party app—using the default Archive Utility for Mac should resolve this.

Installing Postman on Windows

Download the app. Double-click the exe file to install it.

Postman supports Windows 7 and above. Both ia32 (x86) and x64 (amd64) installers are available for Windows. Windows for ARM devices is possible by using the ia32 binary.

Installing Postman on Linux

You can install Postman on Linux by manually downloading it, using the Snap store link, or with the command snap install postman.

To install manually, download and unzip the app, for example into the opt directory. You will need sudo privileges.

To start the app from a launcher icon, create a desktop file, naming it Postman.desktop and saving it in the following location:

            ~/.local/share/applications/Postman.desktop

Enter the following content in the file—replacing opt if you extracted the file somewhere else—and save it:

                          [Desktop Entry]              Encoding              =UTF-8              Name              =Postman              Exec              =/opt/Postman/app/Postman %U              Icon              =/opt/Postman/app/resources/app/assets/icon.png              Terminal              =false              Type              =Application              Categories              =Development;

Postman supports the following distributions:

Ubuntu 14.04 and newer

Fedora 24

Debian 8 and newer

The support of certain Linux distributions depends on if they are supported by Electron. Refer to Electron's documentation.

It is recommended you install Snap as it includes all the libraries that the app needs and they are bundled with the app itself.

Avoid starting Postman using the sudo command, as it will create permission issues on the files created by Postman.

Make sure you have read/write permission for the ~/.config folder where Postman stores information.

If you are an Ubuntu 18 user, you will also need to install the libgconf-2-4 package with the command apt-get install libgconf-2-4

Using Postman on the web

You can use Postman in your web browser to carry out your API development and testing tasks in conjunction with the Postman Agent. To access Postman on the web, visit go.postman.co/home.

Browser requirements

Postman's web application is optimized for the following browsers:

Chrome (78 and higher)
Firefox (76 and higher)
Edge (79 and higher)
Safari (13.1.1 and higher)

Installing the Postman desktop agent

If you are using the Postman web client, you will need to also download the Postman desktop agent. You will be prompted to download and install the agent so that you can make requests from the web. You can also download the agent directly from the Downloads page.

The Postman agent overcomes the Cross Object Resource Sharing (CORS) limitations of browsers, and facilitates API request sending from your browser version of Postman. Once you have the agent installed you will be able to use it with web requests.

You can either enable Auto-select option or manually select the agent (Cloud, Desktop, or Browser) you would like to use for your requests.

Once you enable the option for Auto-select, Postman will automatically select the best agent for your requests.

You can select the Cloud Agent if you want to send HTTP requests via Postman's secure cloud servers. While using the locally running Postman, it is recommended you use the Desktop Agent. Using the Browser Agent for your web requests has some limitations.

If you try to send a request and it isn't successful because the agent is not selected, you will see a link in the response area which you can select to switch to the agent and try your request again. Read more about the agent.

Web limitations

Postman on the web is under active development, but there are a few features you can currently only access in the desktop app and not in your web browser:

Live preview: You will not see all of your request headers update live as you enter your request configurations as you do in the desktop Postman app—you will only see Authorization headers update as you edit.
Saving responses to file
Certificates and Proxy: These will take the browser defined value and cannot be overridden by Postman.
Postman Interceptor

Updating Postman

The native Postman apps will notify you when a major update is available. For other updates you will see a dot on the settings icon. If the indicator is red instead of orange, it indicates a failed update.

Update Ready

Select the update option to download or install the latest update. You will see a notification when the download is complete, prompting you to restart the Postman app to apply the updates. If you're not ready to update yet, choose Later to auto-update the next time you launch the app.

You can configure your preferences to enable automatic download for major updates in Settings > Update. Postman automatically downloads minor updates and bug fixes.

Postman Chrome app (deprecated)

The Postman Chrome app is deprecated—if you're using the Chrome app, you can retain your data when you switch to the native app either by syncing with a Postman account you're signed into, or by exporting from Chrome and importing into the native app.

The native app is built on Electron, and overcomes a number of restrictions of the Chrome platform.

The native apps let you work with cookies directly.
Unlike the Chrome app, no separate extension for the Interceptor is needed.
The native apps come with a built-in proxy that you can use to capture network traffic.
The native apps are not restricted by the Chrome standards for the menu bar. You can check for updates, create Postman Windows and tabs, and edit preferences.
The native apps let you send headers like Origin and User-Agent. These are restricted in the Chrome app.
The "don't follow redirects" option exists in the native apps to prevent requests that return a 300-series response from being automatically redirected—doing this in the Chrome app requires the Interceptor extension.
The native app has a built-in console, which allows you to view the network request details for API calls.

Migrating to the native app

To switch from the Chrome app to native, download Postman and sign in to your account. Start the native app, and your history and collections will be automatically synced.

Alternatively, if you don't want to sign in to your Postman account, you can bulk export your Postman data from the Chrome app, and then bulk import into the new native app at Settings > Data.

Import Export Data

Note that importing will overwrite your existing data. For more on bulk import, see Importing Postman data.

Using Postman behind a firewall

Postman's infrastructure runs on Amazon's AWS platform. If you are operating behind a network firewall, you will need to allow the following domains to make WebSocket connections for Postman:

\*.getpostman.com
\*.postman.co
\*.pstmn.io
\*postman.com

By default, WebSocket connections use the same ports as HTTP (80) and HTTPS (443).

Postman does not have a fixed IP range that can be provided. If necessary, please refer to the current AWS IP ranges and allow the broad range provided.

Troubleshooting your Postman installation

If you encounter any issues installing and running Postman, check out the following tips. If these do not help, please refer to the installation posts on the community forum and create a new post if your issue is not already covered.

Update failed error

If you see an Update Failed notification in Postman, you can use the DevTools to investigate.

update-error-dialog

Open the DevTools using View > Developer > Show DevTools (Current View). Some known errors are as follows:

Error message: Cannot update while running on a read-only volume
- This error means that the app user does not have write permission in the directory where Postman is installed. To resolve the problem, move Postman to a directory where the user has write permissions, for example the /Application directory for Mac, and to the home directory for Linux.

Write Permission Issue in DevTools

Error message: Code signature at URL file:///... did not pass validation: code object is not signed at all
- This error means that there are multiple updates running at the same time. This can happen when the app is opened before the previous update could finish. To resolve the problem, quit and reopen the app.

Multiple Updates Running Issue in DevTools

Update button not available

If you are using Postman for Linux, and installed the app with the Ubuntu Software Center or Snap Store, you may not see a Check for updates button. This is because the updates are handled by the store, which should automatically update Postman on a regular cadence.

Next steps

If you're having trouble with installation or updates, reach out for Postman support. If your installation is working as expected, send your first request!