I owe everyone a big apology as AppImage does work as designed. @probonopd @TheAssassin

I originally used Sparkylinux 7 (trixie) to build my AppImage which was part of the problem but, after several days of testing on a new Distro, I came up with the following that works for me.

Used the below "cp" command to copy all dynamic linked library files to AppDir/usr/lib... for yad gui
(yad binary & 3 other executables

cp --parents -H $(ldd /usr/local/bin/yad | grep -o '\W/[^ ]*') AppDir/usr/ # produced directories lib 246 files / lib64 1 file.

yad also uses 3 helper executables under /usr/lib/x86_64-linux/webkit2gtk-4.0

• /usr/lib/webkit2gtk-4.0/MiniBrowser.source
• /usr/lib/webkit2gtk-4.0/WebKitNetworkProcess.source
• /usr/lib/webkit2gtk-4.0/WebKitWebProcess.source

yad library files /usr/lib | /usr/share → 465 library files = 465 / 232MB

yad binary → compiled on pure Debian bookworm 12 x86_64
./configure --enable-html –enable-sourceview --standalone

yad etc config files = 7 | 232KB

16 hard-linked library files copied to target partition

• File List at bottom of this post - subject to change – more testing needed
• Example code to create symlink to /tmp/yad/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/library-fileame

This is what I am now doing that is working for me:

/AppDir/ Structure:
/AppDir/AppImageBuilder.yml
/AppDir/AppRun
/yad14-portable.desktop
yad-app.png
/Appdir/usr/bin/yad
/AppDir/etc/openal/alsoft.conf
/AppDir/etc/openni2/OpenNI.ini
/AppDir/etc/timidity/timgm6mb.cfg

/AppDir/usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/ # 264 Library Files
/AppDir/usr/lib/OpenNI2/Drivers/ # 3 driver files
/AppDir/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/60-libopenni2-0.rules
/AppDir/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ # 154 Library files
AppDir/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/webkit2gtk-4.0/ # 4 executable helper files
/AppDir/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/webkit2gtk-4.0/injected-bundle/
/AppDir/usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/encoding-profiles/device/dvd.gep
/AppDir/usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/encoding-profiles/file-extension/ # 9 encoding files
/AppDir/usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/encoding-profiles/online-services/youtube.gep
/AppDir/usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/presets/ # 8 multimedia preset files

#----------------------------

/AppDir/AppRun

#!/bin/bash
HERE="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "${0}")")"
export PATH="${HERE}/usr/bin:/usr/lib:/etc:/etc/openal:/etc/openni2:/etc/timidity:usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/encoding-profiles/device:/usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/encoding-profiles/file-extension:/usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/encoding-profiles/online-services:/usr/share/gstreamer-1.0/presets:/usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0:/usr/lib/OpenNI2/Drivers:/usr/lib/udev/rules.[d:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/webkit2gtk-4.0:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/webkit2gtk-4.0/injected-bundle:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu](https://github.com/d:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/webkit2gtk-4.0:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/webkit2gtk-4.0/injected-bundle:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu)"
exec "${HERE}/usr/bin/yad" "$@"

#----------------------------

/AppDir/yad14-portable.desktop

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Name[en_GB]=Yad-Porable-14.1-AppImage
Name=Yad-Porable-14.1-AppImage
Name[en_US]=Yad-Porable-14.1-AppImage
GenericName[en_GB]=Yad-Porable-14.1-AppImage
GenericName=Yad-Porable-14.1-AppImage
GenericName[en_US]=Yad-Porable-14.1-AppImage
Exec=/usr/bin/yad
Icon=yad-app
Path=/usr/bin
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;
Comment="yad 14 Portable"
StartupNotify=false

----------------------------------

AppImageBuilder.yml (Not Used – Untested)

app: yad
binpatch: true
ingredients:
 dist: bookworm
 sources:
 	- deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main non-free-firmware
- deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main non-free-firmware

----------------------------------

Additional Added Library Files – Hard Linked by yad GUI binary

These files can be copied to /tmp/yad/usr/lib/x86_64-linux/ directory and symlined to system directory. I will make a script that does this and post it here.

Debian pure
yad dependencies: Hard Linked Files not normally on Debian minimum builds:

libenchant-2.so.2
libgstgl-1.0.so.0
libgsttranscoder-1.0.so.0
libgtksourceview-3.0.so.1
libharfbuzz-icu.so.0
libicuio.so.72
libmanette-0.2.so.0
libsoup-2.4.so.1

Ubuntu / Linux Mint
yad dependencies: Hard Linked Library Files not normally on Ubuntu builds:

libavif.so.15
libdav1d.so.6
libicudata.so.72
libicui18n.so.72
libicuuc.so.72
libjpeg.so.62
libwoff2common.so.1.0.2
libwoff2dec.so.1.0.2

Example of symlinking to temp hard-linked yad library files:

#!/bin/bash
 export libDir="/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu"
 export libTmpDir="/tmp/yad/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu"
 libFile="libenchant-2.so.2"
# do if file exists 
 if [ -f "$libDir/$libFile" ]; then
	ls -l $libDir/$libFile
	sleep .25
 else 
# do if file is missing: ln -s (file) (symlink)
	ln -s $libTmpDir/$libFile $libDir/$libFile
# export log of all symlinks for easy 1 click removal when done using yad portable setup.
	echo "unlink /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/$libFile" >> /tmp/yad/remove_yad-libfile-symlinks.sh 
# display symlinke > file (/tmp/yad/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libenchant-2.so.2
	ls -l $yadDir/$yadFile
	sleep .25
 fi