Install

Install minRender on every node that will participate in the farm. Nodes can be Windows or macOS and work together in one farm.

Windows

Install minRender from the Microsoft Store for automatic updates:

Requires Windows 10 (version 2004 or later) or Windows 11 (see Requirements below). For farm nodes you can install from a terminal without opening the Store:

winget install --id 9PN4VXDZ3THW --source msstore --accept-package-agreements

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) or later, or Windows 11, x64 (any edition).
• The render application(s) you submit to — Blender, After Effects or Cinema 4D — installed on each node that should render.

The Store package declares firewall rules for HTTP port 8420 and UDP port 4243 and registers a startup task so minRender launches with the machine (toggle it in Task Manager → Startup).

Where minRender keeps its data

Everything minRender stores on the machine lives in one per-user folder, %USERPROFILE%\minRender — that is C:\Users\<you>\minRender (type %USERPROFILE%\minRender into Explorer’s address bar):

Item	What it is
config.json	farm settings: sync root, ports, node name
node_id.txt	this node’s identity on the farm
minrender.db	local job/chunk history
submissions\	hand-off folder: the Blender, After Effects and Cinema 4D plug-ins drop job files here and minRender picks them up
staging\	frames in flight while a chunk renders; emptied when the chunk finishes
mr-agent.log	render agent log

The folder is deliberately outside AppData, which the Store package keeps private, so the plug-ins (which run inside Blender, After Effects or Cinema 4D) can read the farm settings and write submissions, and so a node reinstalled or upgraded keeps its identity.

Upgrading from 0.5.7 or earlier: those versions kept the folder at %LOCALAPPDATA%\MinRender. The first launch of 0.5.8 copies it to the new location (everything except in-flight staging\ frames) and keeps watching the old submissions\ folder, so plug-ins you have not updated yet still submit. Once the plug-ins on your workstations are reinstalled from the farm share’s MinRender-v2\plugins folder (version 0.5.8 or later, see Submit a job), delete the old folder.

Uninstall

Uninstall from Settings → Apps (or winget uninstall --id 9PN4VXDZ3THW) like any Store app. That removes the program, its startup task and firewall rules, and the package’s private data. The data folder above is left in place so your farm settings and node identity survive a reinstall. To remove it too, delete %USERPROFILE%\minRender, or from a terminal:

rmdir /s /q "%USERPROFILE%\minRender"

If you installed the optional RNDR companion, run its uninstall.ps1 first; it also lives in that folder.

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macOS

Download the latest release here.

1. Open the .dmg file.
2. Drag minRender to your Applications folder.
3. Launch from Applications or Spotlight.

Updates

Once installed in Applications, minRender keeps itself up to date — it checks once a day and offers to download and install new versions in place. You can also check any time from About → Check for Updates…. (In-place updates require running minRender from the Applications folder, not from the mounted disk image.)

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minRender, like all render farm coordinators, lets you launch executables remotely. That behavior is dangerous outside a trusted LAN — keep it inside one, test your flow thoroughly, and practice safe computing.

Point each node at the shared folder

Open the Monitor, go to File → Settings…, and browse to or paste a shared directory that every node can reach. This can be:

• an SMB share on a NAS,
• a synced folder via LucidLink, Dropbox, Synology Drive, Resilio, Syncthing, or similar.

That folder holds the node phonebook, leader state, job records, and aggregated logs (MinRender + DCC stdout). Press Save.

Repeat on every node. As soon as two or more nodes share the same sync root, they’ll discover each other and elect a leader.

What gets created in the sync root

Subfolder	Purpose
nodes/	Per-node phonebook entries — each node writes its own meta.json and heartbeat here.
jobs/	Active and finished job records, plus per-chunk DCC stdout logs.
templates/examples/	Read-only example templates that ship with MinRender. Override by dropping your own template with the same template_id into templates/.
plugins/	Installable DCC submitters (After Effects, Blender, Cinema 4D) — see Submit a job.

Next

Configure the node’s tags and local staging, then submit your first job.