Deploying application and including images/files

I have a project made with Qt Creator and I would now like to deploy/release (which one is correct) it so that I could say, email it to my brother who could run it on his laptop. I'm not quite sure how to do this though, all I know is that once you build the project in release mode you need to copy over some dll files, but which ones? I'm also using OpenGL in the project so I imagine that'll require some dlls too.

My project also includes images from jpgs in a folder on my desktop. This is the first time I've ever used images in any programming project so I'm not quite sure what to do with them to include them in the final deployed application.

I have read a bit on static building but anytime any instructions mention the command line I stray away since I have no idea how all that works with path variables and what not...

You do not want to compile a static Qt.

Start reading here and keep going to the bottom of the page.


If you want to ship the images with your application as separate files then make your installer include them in the bundle and make sure your application will be able to find them when run. If you want to build the images into the application so they cannot possibly be misplaced then read about the Qt Resource System