How to Install Actual Budget Silently with winget on Windows

Need Actual Budget on a server, golden image, or developer workstation without anyone watching the screen? winget's silent install handles it in seconds. Here's the recipe and the gotchas.

Quick answer

Open Terminal as Administrator and run:

winget install --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget -e --silent --accept-package-agreements --accept-source-agreements

Actual Budget: A local-first personal finance app

Typical install time: 10–60 seconds depending on installer size.

What gets installed

Field	Value
Package ID	`ActualBudget.ActualBudget`
Publisher	Actual Budget
Installer type	NSIS (Nullsoft)
License	MIT
Latest version	26.5.2
Last release	5/8/2026
Minimum OS	Windows 10+
Homepage	github.com

NSIS installers use a single /S flag for silent mode. Add /D=<path> (unquoted, last) for a custom install location.

Per-user install (no admin)

If you don't have admin rights, try per-user scope:

winget install --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget -e --scope user --silent

If the manifest doesn't have a user-scope installer, winget falls back with an error — in that case you genuinely need admin or use the Access denied fix.

Specify a version

To pin a known-good version (useful for reproducible CI / team standardisation):

winget install --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget -e --version 26.5.2 --silent

List available versions:

winget show --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget --versions

Override silent flags

If winget's --silent doesn't fully suppress the installer's UI, pass native flags via --override:

winget install --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget -e --override "/S"

These are the NSIS (Nullsoft)-native silent switches the installer recognises.

Verify after install

winget list --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget

If the version is shown, the install succeeded.

Upgrade silently

winget upgrade --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget -e --silent --accept-package-agreements --accept-source-agreements

Or upgrade as part of a bulk weekly cron — see How to update all Windows apps.

Uninstall silently

winget uninstall --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget --silent --disable-interactivity

Detailed guide: How to uninstall Windows apps with winget.

In a provisioning script

PowerShell snippet for unattended Windows setup:

$apps = @(
  "ActualBudget.ActualBudget"
  # add more packages here
)

foreach ($id in $apps) {
  winget install --id $id -e --silent `
    --accept-package-agreements --accept-source-agreements
}

Wrap in Task Scheduler for one-shot machine provisioning. See Fresh Windows 11 setup.

Common errors

"Actual Budget is already installed" — winget detected the existing install. To force-reinstall over the existing copy:

winget install --id ActualBudget.ActualBudget -e --silent --force

"Installer hash does not match" — Actual Budget published a new version before the winget manifest updated. Wait ~24 hours or pass --force. See hash mismatch fix.

"Access denied" / 0x80070005 — run Terminal as Administrator. See Access denied fix.

0x80073D02 — package in use — Actual Budget is currently running. Close it then retry. See package in use fix.