We’ve been working hard to deliver a seamless desktop experience for ComfyUI. Our goal is to ensure non-technical users enjoy the smoothest experience possible. Here’s how this improves upon the standalone package:
Code-Signed & Secure: ComfyUI now opens without triggering security warnings. The app is code-signed, so you’ll always know when a version comes directly from us.
Cross Platform: Available on Windows / macOS / Linux
Automatic Updates: Stay on the stable release track of ComfyUI with automatic updates.
Recommended Python Environment: No more manual setup headaches. We include a recommended Python environment to make the installation process smoother.
ComfyUI Manager Shipped by Default: Install nodes directly from the ComfyUI registry with access to the latest, semantically versioned nodes. Nightly versions are still available from the latest Git commit.
Automatic Resource Import: You can reuse your existing ComfyUI by choosing that directory during installation. We will automatically import your inputs, models, and outputs.
Integrated Log Viewer & Terminal: View server logs in case you need to debug.
Select a directory for your ComfyUI files. A Python environment will be installed in the selected location and takes around 15GB. System files will also be created during installation as below.
If you have an existing ComfyUI install, and you can import existing models, user settings, and workflows. Select the root of your old directory and choose the “ComfyUI” folder (e.g., D:\ComfyUI_windows_portable\ComfyUI). This step works for both Windows and Mac.
Custom nodes cannot be imported yet.
Select the “ComfyUI” folder to import resource
3. Folder Access
The Desktop application stores logs, models, and other files on your system. You can go to theHelp menu to open the folders conveniently.
4. Templates & Auto Model Download
4a. Templates
We provide template workflows under the “workflow” side bar to help you get started. For new users to start your first generation, click Templates under the Workflows sidebar. Choose any template workflow to enter the workflow window.
4b. Auto Model Download
ComfyUI Desktop can download models and place them in the correct directory, if they are defined in the workflow json. All of the template workflows have models embedded.
Click the blue button to open Templates
4 basic templates provided
Follow the dialog to download the models needed
5. Manager & Custom nodes
5a. ComfyUI Manager
ComfyUI Manager is now shipped by Default. You can now install nodes directly from the ComfyUI registry with access to the latest, semantically versioned nodes. You can search for a custom node in Manager and choose to display them with frequency. Check out more preference options for custom nodes in Settings !
6. Logs & Terminal
We've added an integrated log and terminal for the ComfyUI Desktop that makes it easier to debug errors. Logs files themselves can be viewed in these folder: ‣
Toggle log view button on side bar
If you’d like to apply further change or pip install things in terminal, open log view and switch from “LOGS” to “TERMINAL” as below.
7. Install Pip packages
The Desktop application ships with uv, which creates a Python virtual environment and installs the necessary dependencies. However, when you are installing various custom nodes you will inevitably run into the need to manually pip install something.
Since we install ComfyUI and ComfyUI-Manager's dependencies with uv, we also alias pip to uv pip because uv is fast and you can benefit from the local cache it uses. However, if you prefer regular pip for any reason you can run:
python -m pip <command> since the virtual environment is activated in the integrated terminal.
You can run all of these commands in the integrated terminal in #6 Logs & Terminal.
If you are used to using the embedded python from the standalone, you can also activate the virtual environment and then run python -m pip install <package> . Your virtual environment is created in the directory you selected under .venv. Instructions to activate.
You can now define custom key bindings without interference from browser-level commands. Check out other UI settings here!
Now that we are shipping native applications, there is a need to have better information to debug issues. Not every user is familiar with Github. At the onboarding step, you can opt-in to send us crash reports, which only include stack trace for unhandled exceptions and native crashes. More info here.
If you opt-out, nothing will be sent. In either case, no workflows, personal information, or logs files will be sent.
9. Update Version
Auto Update
When there’s an update of ComfyUI builds, there will be a pop-up once you enter ComfyUI. Click “restart,” and ComfyUI will auto-update into the latest build.
You can turn on/off auto update in Settings .
10. Missing Models
If you downloaded a model but ComfyUI cannot find it, you may need to add an additional model search path to the yaml file.
Example scenario
You need to add a motion LoRA
Your model is located in models/animatediff_motion_lora
Example solution
Add the below line to the extra_model_config.yaml file
Restart ComfyUI
YAML config file locations
On Windows: %APPDATA%\ComfyUI\extra_models_config.yaml
On macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/ComfyUI/extra_models_config.yaml
On Linux: ~/.config/ComfyUI/extra_models_config.yaml
New to ComfyUI - Core Concepts
1. What is ComfyUI?
ComfyUI is a node-based interface and inference engine for Generative AI.
Users can combine various AI models and operations via nodes to achieve a higher customized and controllable generation pipeline.
ComfyUI runs generations using your local computing power.
2. What is a Workflow / Node?
Every generation in ComfyUI is processed by a workflow, which is assembled with various nodes (seen as the separated blocks).
A basic image generation workflow
These nodes represent different functions such as loading a model, inputting prompts and images, defining samplers, previewing and more. A node takes an input, process it, and produces an output.
The workflows and nodes are modular. It means you can edit every single node or use a pre-built workflow if you don’t want to start from scratch.
Every image or video generated in ComfyUI saves the workflow in the metadata. You can simply drag them into ComfyUI to get that complete workflow back.
3. Try Your First Generation
Download ComfyUI following the instructions for installation
Start with a template
We provide template workflows under the “workflow” side bar to help you get started. For new users to start your first generation, click Templates under the Workflows sidebar. Choose any template workflow to enter the workflow window.
Click the blue button to browse Templates
4 basic templates provided
Auto Model Download
ComfyUI now allows users to embed the model URLs in workflows. If you don’t have the required models in your folders, it will prompt you to auto-download them, as below.If you encounter a network issue in auto-download, please manually download and put the model file into your ComfyUI/models/checkpoints folder.
Follow the dialog to download the models needed
Models can be browsed in the Model Library in the side bar
Click Queue Button to Run a Generation
Click Queue button to run workflows.
Get your Generation Result
Generation results can be found in Queue library in side bar
Real-time progress of nodes
You can go to help menu to access logs/models/input/output folders quickly
4. Leverage the Power of Workflows and Custom Nodes
Save and Share Workflows
The way ComfyUI is built up allows users to share or import a whole workflow file and start generation immediately.
If you save a workflow, it will appear in the Workflow Library next time you enter ComfyUI. You can also try export the workflow as a “.json“ file to any folders, this file can be shared and opened in ComfyUI directly.
ComfyUI ecosystem is lucky to have many developers/creators open-sourcing their workflows. Search and explore the amazing work of the community.
The easiest way to install custom nodes is through ComfyUI Manager:
Click and open ComfyUI Manager, click “Custom Nodes Manager” to browse the list of Custom Nodes; Click Workflow Gallery to access multiple workflow sharing websites.
Latest Models supported in ComfyUI
ComfyUI originates from and supports open-source AI. We usually support the latest open-source models as soon as possible.
For the latest model supported in ComfyUI, please subscribe our blog and follow the examples we provide for new models:
