diff --git a/ui/desktop/README.md b/ui/desktop/README.md
index 7d0cf09d3..34634f60c 100644
--- a/ui/desktop/README.md
+++ b/ui/desktop/README.md
@@ -87,7 +87,8 @@ These environment variables may be used to customized the build.
 | `APP_UPDATER_CURRENT_VERSION` | Version of client. |
 | `APP_UPDATER_LATEST_VERSION_TAG` | Next version for comparison with current version. |
 | `APP_UPDATER_LATEST_VERSION_LOCATION` | Location of app release to use for updating client. Can be a filepath or url. |
-| `BYPASS_CLI_SETUP` | Enable to disallow download and extraction of cli. For development use only. |
+| `BYPASS_CLI_SETUP` | Disable download and extraction of cli. For development use only. |
+| `BYPASS_APP_UPDATER` | Disable app updater feature. For development use only. |
 
 ### Building for Production
 
diff --git a/ui/desktop/electron-app/src/helpers/app-updater.js b/ui/desktop/electron-app/src/helpers/app-updater.js
index 70e4a8426..70dcc7498 100644
--- a/ui/desktop/electron-app/src/helpers/app-updater.js
+++ b/ui/desktop/electron-app/src/helpers/app-updater.js
@@ -124,6 +124,11 @@ const displayDownloadPrompt = (version, url) => {
  **/
 module.exports = {
   run: async ({ suppressNoUpdatePrompt } = {}) => {
+    /**
+     * Ignore app updater prompts.
+     */
+    if (process.env.BYPASS_APP_UPDATER) return;
+
     /**
      * Disable app updater check for linux as update is unsupported.
      * TODO: Enable for windows pending feature dev. Windows is supported.