Importing Content

Warning

This guide assumes that you already have obtained the content legally, RetroArch does not provide users with copyrighted content.

This guide uses the "scan" functionality to import your games into RetroArch's playlists sorted by console. The scan is recursive so you can organise your collection into sub-folders or potentially scan your whole computer.

Step 1: Download database

In order to have RetroArch recognise your games, you need to have a database of all the titles.

Note

Certain releases of Retroarch (e.g. Windows), come with the database files out-of-the-box.

From the RetroArch main menu select "Online Updater", then choose "Update Databases". Also update core info files.

Wait for the download to finish.

Step 2: Scan and import

The "Import Content" menu can be either in the "Playlists" > "Import Content" (default), or directly accessible from the Main Menu.

Note

The location of this menu item can be toggled in "Settings" > "User Interface" > "Menu Item Visibility" > "Show 'Import Content'" and updating this from "Playlists Menu" to "Main Menu".

The default, fully automatic option for scanning is strict (requires the CRC checksum or disc serial of the content to match the database). Scanning can be customized in several ways, loose scans for example will add content that does not match the database.

Please be patient while it scans. Large collections could take several minutes.

Step 3: Add box art

This is optional. Go back to the main menu, select "Online Updater", then choose "Playlist Thumbnails Updater". Here you need to select the console you want to download.

Please be patient, these take quite some time to download, especially on a slow internet connection.

Tip

In order to be able to download thumbnails for manually scanned content, the name of the playlist and the names of the entries must match the ones on the thumbnail website.