How can I sync saves between Windows and Linux?

Hi. I have a Windows+Linux dual boot setup. I use Windows mainly, and I want to have Linux to check out how it works. Part of this will be retroarch gaming, but I realized that my saves will be different across both OSs. This is easily fixed by moving the “saves” folder from one to the other, but how couls I automate this? I wouls need a way to make both of these folders on completely different operating systems contain the same information at all times. Is it possible?

Totally possible! Auto-mount your Windows partition at login in Linux (in Mint, you can do that with the “Disks” app). Then, you can set the save directory in RetroArch under Settings > Directory > savefile and Save State. Both these options are near the end of the list.

Now, RA on Linux and Windows both use the same save directory.

You can also do what I do: move all your saves into a folder on your Dropbox, then configure both RAs to use that folder as their save folder. That way, I have cloud saves that I can use on both my laptop and desktop PC.

For some reason I didn’t think about directing RetroArch to my Windows drive, stupid me. Thanks.

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Sure, happy to help :slight_smile:

Actually it doesn’t work for some reason, I made sure the path is the same but it doesn’t grab my saves. I changed the “savefile” directory entry to direct to my “saves” folder in my Windows drive, but nothing.

Hmm, I haven’t shared saves between Linux and Win myself, so I can’t speak from experience. I was expecting it to work. Things I could think of might be file system incompatibilities. Your Windows drive is NTFS, and Linux is EXT4, I presume?

Check if you have the right NTFS drivers installed on Linux.

Also, check if your Windows drive is auto-mounted on Linux boot. If you have to open the file manager and click on it to mount it every time you log into Linux, then RA won’t be able to access it unless you do that.

Last resort could be Dropbox, perhaps.

You’re correct about the file systems, and the Windows drive does automount. I have no issues to read from the drive but I haven’t tried to write to it, however that’s not needed to see the saves and load them, but even then I see no reason as to why I shouldn’t be able to write to it.

Regardless, I installed Manjaro as a secondary OS on a drive I had lying around that I knew was faulty, and it failed sooner than I expected so I no longer have access to Manjaro sadly. Thanks for the help.