Uploading multiple files one Xbox One with RetroArch?

Wondering if theres a way to upload multiple files at one time? Im currently using the file explorer - xbox device portal and uploading ROMs is taking forever as you can only select one at a time.

Thoughts?

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On another note, I can’t seem to play roms from a usb key. Retroarch see them, but when loading, I get an error. When trying the same usb key with PPSSPP, I don’t have any problem at all loading roms.

Any fix?

Thank you

I am wondering exactly the same thing. There is a way to access the xbox one storage through the Windows 10 file explorer, but for some reason most folders of retroarch don’t appear there.

I hope a solution to this will arrive soon, copying thousands of files one by one takes too much time.

I am able to run ROMs from USB. How?

  1. Put the files in the xbox dev file explorer on the computer.
  2. Put the exact same file you saved to the xbox dev file explorer and put it on your USB/External Storage Device.

Then, you can run off of the external device. Since, the Xbox One Dev Mode registers this as a “acceptable format” I, myself personally noticed.

I can play ROMs from USB.

I struggled with the issue of uploading roms for a while and found two solutions.

The first solution I found was to install My Files Explorer and use this to copy rom files from USB drive (“Removeable Storage Devices”) to the LocalState/Roms directory in the Retroarch installation folder, which in My Files Explorer is under Local, Packages, then a guid ending in 4d7dy.

However there are a couple of problems with this first approach - one is that although you can do bulk copying with My Files Explorer it’s still kinda clunky to copy via USB. The second issue is that the partition which the apps userdata files are stored in is limited to 2GB of storage no matter how big you set the storage size to in the dev environment.

My Files Explorer is able to access the files belonging to other apps installed in dev mode, so is great for copying files to and fro including copying a retroarch.cfg from another installation, so I still recommend installing it even if you don’t use this first USB method.

So my second and recommended approach is to store the files in a location which you can connect to via windows explorer then you can simply copy the files across in bulk with explorer and you can make use of the full size of your dev partition. I currently have about 9GB worth of rom images in mine.

So here’s the basic approach.

  1. If you haven’t already done so, make sure you enlarge your dev partition as it only defaults to 5GB. Unfortunately you will lose everything installed and copied to dev mode when you do this hence the suggestion to do this first. On the dev home screen press the menu button on the controller then choose manage dev storage, and adjust the space you want available. I chose 29GB to leave plenty of room because as mentioned you can’t change it later without starting over. After this you’ll need to reboot.

  2. Install Retroarch and (optionally) My Files Explorer via the web interface. Highlight retroarch and press the view button, view details, then change it from app to game and reboot.

  3. Log into the dev mode web interface and go to File Explorer, click Browse and you will get a pop up screen telling you how to connect to the Development Files folder using Windows explorer - run the cmd command to save the credentials then paste the UNC path into the run command or an explorer window and you’ll see a drive with a couple of folders including WindowsApps.

  4. Directly in DevelopmentFiles (at the same level as WindowsApps) create a Retroarch folder and within that create a roms folder and a system folder. (For BIOS files to go in)

  5. Copy your rom files and bios files into these folders directly using windows explorer.

  6. Configure Retroarch to use these folders instead of the default folders in the 2GB userdata partition - in retroarch go to Settings, Directory. Change System/BIOS to D:\DevelopmentFiles\Retroarch\system. Then go to File Browser and change it to D:\DevelopmentFiles\Retroarch\roms, then save the retroarch config and reload it.

You should now be able to go to Main Menu, Load Content, then choose Start Directory to go directly to the new roms folder.

The same folder remapping technique also works for some other functions such as screenshots - I also have the screenshots folder mapped in a similar way so I can easily copy out screenshots.

No more uploading files one at a time using the web portal File Explorer and no more 2GB limit for rom files.

Enjoy. :slight_smile:

After deleting retroarch and going through the installation process again myself I wanted to really highlight this step where the application type is changed from App to Game. If you don’t do this, you will not be able to browse to D:\DevelopmentFiles in Settings->Directory. Instead you’ll get an error “Path “” is not currently accessible. Please open any containing directory to access it”.

So it seems clear that “Apps” have more restricted file system access on the Xbox than “Games”. When it is set correctly to game you will go directly to a list of Drive letters when using the File browser.

I would also suggest that people relocate their emulator config and save state directories to D drive along with the roms etc so that you don’t lose game progress if you delete and reinstall Retroarch, as anything within the actual retroarch program folder (the default location for all these things) will of course be deleted when retroarch itself is deleted.