How to disable auto update of Postman app

Question

Is there a way to disable updates in Postman?

7.26 is buggy for me, it freezes on larger debug data is nresponses, but 7.23 is working perfectly. But even if I set "Automatically download major updates" to disable, it doesn't help, as this is a minor update and gets applied automatically. Is there a way to really disable updates and stick to the working version of Postman?

Teodor

Adding my own solution: this problem forced me to try different clients, so finally I settled with Insomnia, it's a very decent and fast client, works fine with large responses too. I think it has less features compared to Postman, but did never freeze or crash for me, I very rarely have problems with it. So anyone having enough of the Postman problems, I suggest to give Insomnia a chance. – Teodor

Can Insomnia work with Postman collection and environment? I have lot of existing data which will be impossible to recreate once I move to Insomnia. – Conditioner

Answer 1

Hosts file method (Easy)

Here's my workaround which works on macOS, Linux, Windows, just add these to your hosts file:

0.0.0.0         dl.pstmn.io
0.0.0.0         sync-v3.getpostman.com
0.0.0.0         getpostman.com
0.0.0.0         go.pstmn.io

Here's a tutorial about editing host file for all major operation systems: https://www.howtogeek.com/27350/beginner-geek-how-to-edit-your-hosts-file/ If the above link has any problems, please let me know to update it.

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DNS Server method (Harder)

If you don't have access to your hosts file, or your hosts file doesn't work at all you can use a local dns server and configure it to block these addresses, one example is dnsmasq here's how I would use it:

address=/pstmn.io/127.0.0.1
address=/getpostman.com/127.0.0.1
server=/1.1.1.1
listen-address=127.0.0.1

Then you can point your computer or VPN's dns server to 127.0.0.1 and using your own local dns server block those addresses.

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Important Note: To avoid DNS cache still making your postman update itself, it's advised that you either restart your system or reset your DNS cache (once you've done the setup)

Puma

You might want to add go.pstmn.io to the list, with that one included I don't see it calling home anymore. – Whirl

Thank you added I'm using macos and it doesn't go to home page if you meant that? – Puma

No idea what's it being called for. I just monitored network traffic (using Wireshark) and noticed the app connecting to that host. – Whirl

Well doesn't hurt to disable it, so I added it anyways, thanks! – Puma

How nice of the developers to ignore this request, and force workarounds of this nature. At least I was able to get this into my hosts file, since my user account is unable to run the update. It was annoying having the system prompt me to upgrade each time I started it, when all I could do was wait for the prompt and then dismiss it. My system administrator got tired of me pestering him. – Dearman

The link to 'edit your hosts file' is down. Here is the file(s) you would need to edit. It is highly suggested you make a backup (copy / paste w/ rename) before making edits. - MacOS: sudo nano /etc/hosts - Windows: edit (as Administrator) C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts - Linux: assuming this varies by distro – Kelleher

@JustinHorner Link is updated thanks for letting me know! – Puma

Updating the hosts file may not always work for a number of reasons: IP addresses may be cached, default proxy configuration may ignore hosts file settings, etc. – Belew

@AlekDavis Thanks for the cache point, answer is updated. About the latter case If you can configure your proxy/VPN to use the local DNS then it'll work, if you can't control its DNS however, if you own the proxy/VPN just configure this same host file on the server hosting the proxy/VPN and again make sure the proxy/VPN is using the local DNS of the server that is hosted on, you can use unbound as a program that allows such behavior for instance, it's a little more complex. – Puma

This fix is not working as the moment - I updated my hosts file yesterday, rebooted Windows machine, re-installed an old version of Postman and it was updated today. Possibly related to Alek Davis' comment above – Appleby

@Appleby Try dig dl.pstmn.io this should give you the public ip instead of 127.0.0.1 which it gives me, which will indicate it hasn't worked for you, it will also tell you what dns server your are using, eg: SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53. Based on these information you can find a way to get a hold of your hosts file which you don't have right now or use a custom dns service such as dnsmasq and block these addresses over there, you can also point your vpn's dns to 127.0.0.1:53 or use its blocklist if it has one. – Puma

@Appleby Also I updated the answer to point this out. – Puma

Very useful now that they discontinued scratch pad in new versions. Thanks! – Boren

Answer 2

No, the people on Postman simply don't want to let us disable the minor updates. Here an open issue: https://github.com/postmanlabs/postman-app-support/issues/6999 Let's hope they are sensible to our requests.

Also, a comment mentions working solution for Linux (not sure on other OSes):

On file "AutoUpdaterService.js"; path: "Postman/app/resources/app/services/AutoUpdaterService.js", in line 35 only add "return false", like image.

Midwifery

I found it is unethical that Postman continues to download updates although I have disabled the auto downloading already. It keeps downloading over 100MB new version and take good use of my local hard disk. – Perpetua

Considering Postman retiring Scratch Pad, it becomes even more important. blog.postman.com/announcing-new-lightweight-postman-api-client > For users currently using the Scratch Pad mode, it will continue working in deprecated mode until September 15, 2023. – Edmond

@Edmond I hope the trick will allow using the scratchpad mode. – Belew

Thanks for sharing this. For Windows everything is packed in C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\Postman\app-9.31.28\resources\app.asar so what worked for me is: 1. extract app.asar using: "npx asar extract app.asar <destfolder>" (answer: https://mcmap.net/q/77186/-how-to-unpack-an-asar-file ) 2. rename app.asar to app.asar.old for backup 3. go to unpacked app.asar/services/AutoUpdaterService.js and edit it according to the answer above 4. pack everything in unpacked app.asar folder with "npx asar pack . app.asar" 5. place this new app.asar back to location from step 1 6. run Postman – Promycelium

As an alternative to editing AutoUpdaterService in this comment I execute sed -i '' '2s/Postman/PostmanEnterprise/' app/package.json which turns enterpriseUtils.isEnterpriseApplication() to true hence skipping auto updates. – Ergosterol

Answer 3

There is a way to do it for Windows:

Set Deny on the write permission for everyone on the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Postman\ directory.

It is not a cross-platform solution, so you can block Postman update servers for Linux and macOS using the host file, which is mentioned in here.

Leaper

I think for Windows it's easier to just remove everything from the Postman distribution (under the %localappdata%\Postman folder) except the folder mapped to the version you want to keep (including postmand and updater executables). Then always launch the Postman.exe from the version-specific folder. – Belew

Answer 4

You can just delete Update.exe file in the folder 'Postman'

Aminopyrine