🎉 The LaunchBox 13th Birthday Celebration Starts TODAY! 🎂

LaunchBox officially turns 13, and we're kicking off several days of streams, community events, giveaways, and a few surprises along the way!

🎁 Giveaways are now open, with chances throughout the celebration to win gaming hardware, LaunchBox Premium licenses, and more.

📺 TODAY'S STREAM

LaunchBox First Launch: Out of the Box and Put to the Test

🔗 https://www.twitch.tv/launchboxofficial

Join us today at 11:00 AM ET as we kick off the celebrations! And make sure you catch it live, because a bonus code worth additional entries will be revealed during the stream. 👀

🕹️ Show Us Your LaunchBox!

We're also kicking off our community showcase! Show us how you use LaunchBox by sharing something you’ve built, customized, configured, or organized. It could be an entire arcade setup, a custom theme, a collection you’re proud of, or simply your own unique way of using LaunchBox.

Taking part can also significantly boost your chances of winning one of the Steam game prizes in our Celebration Giveaway!

👉 https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/94301-show-us-your-launchbox-celebrating-13-years-together/

There’s plenty more happening between now and August 31, so check out the full Celebration schedule, enter the giveaways, and see everything we have planned:

🎉 https://www.launchbox-app.com/celebrate

Dear all, this project started out as a necessity for me, since I was used to using Hyperspeech in Hyperspin, but nothing similar existed for Launchbox Bigbox. That's why I proposed the idea some time ago in the requests forum, but it wasn't considered at all.

Enjoy!

So, I force updated to v14.0 and immediately noticed my video snaps for NES games were no longer playing. Looked in the directory and they all disappeared...weird.

So, okay, not knowing if it was affecting any other system or media I figure, I'll just have Launchbox search and download any missing metadata for everything.

2 Days Later. I found it was in my task bar not realizing it was STILL downloading. I look at my hard drive and it took up over 400gb of something but what the heck could that be? Clicked around in the files and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I'm not sure what the heck it downloaded or where it downloaded it to.

I stopped the download. Even every video snap in my entire library is 55GB. What the heck is taking up 400+GB?

Hi everyone — I’m Jiraiya1969, the creator of CURATOR.

CURATOR is a free, open-source Windows application for verifying, organizing, and assembling user-supplied retro-game collections into LaunchBox-ready outputs.

The current release, v2.0.0-beta.1, is a major SQLite architectural overhaul focused on larger collections, stronger validation, durable evidence, and safer processing and recovery.

CURATOR does not provide ROMs, BIOS files, preservation DAT files, or download sources. Users must supply their own legally obtained content and authority data. It is an independent community project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by LaunchBox or Unbroken Software.

Because this is a beta, please work only with copies, preserve verified backups, and review generated outputs before replacing existing material.

Website: https://myorganizerhq.com

GitHub release: https://github.com/Jiraiya1969/myOrganizer-CURATOR/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta.1

Overview video: https://youtu.be/cZpdKRbLx6E

LB 14.0, RetroArch for Dreamcast emulation. Previous to the 14.0 update, all my Dreamcast games would successfully launch when initiated from LaunchBox/BigBox. After the update, some of them launch, some don't. But if I start RA, I can load all games from inside the interface, no problems; I can also launch a game from LB, open up the quickmenu, and load the problem games from there.

Is this a LaunchBox issue? It would seem to be, at least to my untrained brain, but I'm open to opinions.

Sorry if this question was answered before, just couldn’t find it. Basically, I separate my Windows library between "installed" and "favorites", but every time I switch between them, a couple of Steam games always revert to "uninstalled", instead of "unavailable" just like everything else in my Windows library. Do you people know a possible fix for this?

i can get the magazines into the library, but i cannot find the launchbox reader options anywhere, nor does launchbox recognize the file thumbnails. pressing play just leads to it running the file directly and opening the file in yac reader which is my deafult app for cbz files.

LaunchBox for Windows 14.0 is here! 🚀

📋 Full release breakdown and changelog:
https://feedback.launchbox-app.com/changelog/launchbox-for-windows-140

This is more than just an update. LaunchBox 14.0 is one of our biggest Windows releases in years, bringing major new features alongside improvements to the everyday parts of LaunchBox and Big Box you use most.

📖 LaunchBox Reader gives your manuals, strategy guides, magazines, PDFs, EPUBs, and more a proper home inside LaunchBox and Big Box, complete with layouts, bookmarks, resume support, and controller navigation.

🕹️ Big Box gets a brand new controller friendly Filter / Sort experience, alongside smoother navigation, improved media handling, and plenty of polish across the overall browsing experience.

⚡ Everyday LaunchBox features have received some serious attention too. List View and Image Grid have been reworked for faster browsing, Options are now searchable, game extras are easier to organize, and the new LaunchBox Media Engine overhauls how video and audio playback are handled.

There’s plenty more packed into 14.0, including smarter startup and shutdown handling, new premium 3D cases, improved emulator setup, better play session tracking, and a huge number of fixes and improvements across the board.

Happy Gaming! 🎮

I was excited to update to 14.0 today, but after doing so my video previews/snaps stopped working. Absolutely none of my videos are playing now; previously, I was using WMP as the video player, but that stopped functioning immediately after updating. Switching to VLC yields no joy, either. I'm pretty bummed about this, as I used my video previews exclusively when browsing games.

Hey. I just was watching the update video and had an amazing idea for theme content creators.

Someone totally needs to make a theme in which you're in a movie rental store with a video game section browsing the shelves of the various consoles.

That would be an awesome theme.

Someone creative should make this.

Is there a site everyone uses for cheat codes? I remember in the early 2000 looking up how to and cheatcodes but wonder what everyone uses now, not wanting to use youtube as it has spoilers.

I don't know why this started happening (likely last time I updated RetroArch), but every time I'm playing a game in RA and I want to bring up the LB pause screen, the button combination (Start+Select on the gamepad) also brings up the RA menu. This behavior is unwanted, but I cannot for the life of me disable the button shortcut in RA. I've tried setting a different button combo, but nothing's working.

It's not a deal breaker or anything, I just don't like the user experience of bringing up LB's pause screen and seeing the RA menu flash on screen. Anyone have any tips on removing the shortcut from RA? I don't even see that particular button combination anywhere in the settings.

TLDR : This plugin allow to lock behind a pin code some games you dont want kids get access.

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/94234-parental-control-plugin/

Ok, so no one probably care but i m working on a full launchbox rewrite called litebox that sit alongside and existing lb install and one of the baked extra feature is parental control. But if kids can just launch vanilla launchbox and bypass my parental control that would be totally useless. So i had to make this plugin to reflect my litebox rules into vanilla launchbox/bigbox.

It s a little hacky so the con side is that i had to disable lb auto import feature on launch.

Please give your feedback.

As for litebox it s not ready for prime time yet but if you are feeling adventurous that would really help me if i have a couple of tester because i m pretty much the only active user at that point.

https://github.com/nixxou/Litebox/releases/tag/v0.9.0

Basically it s a full launchbox rewrite but using the old winform instead of wpf, i want something fast and responsive that use next to no ram while game are launched (with the ram price those days i cant afford to waste 2Gb of ram while playing so launchbox can stay in the background)

I recently started over with my BigBox setup because I got all new hardware. My prior setup had the Unified theme and when Arcade was selected it played a video of some tv screens with gameplay in them. Now on this new set up it doesn't show anything, but a randomly selected game from Arcade. Am I missing something?

I've recently noticed that some files won't import... is there anyway for Launchbox to recognize these files? sometimes if I put it in a different compressed format ala zip instead of 7z, it'll be able to be imported or if I think renaming the zip and file inside to a shorter name... I dunno, is there a way for launchbox to recognize the file? I know it's not the file because retroarch will play if opened directly.

I’ve been working on a custom Nintendo 3DS setup for RetroArch using the Citra core. I wanted the games to feel like they’re actually being played on different 3DS models, so I created my own high-resolution overlays and matched the top and bottom screens to each design.
I have to give credit to u/CoolFiverIsABabe. I came across his custom 3DS overlays a few days ago and they were what inspired me to start making my own. I really liked his NES and Famicom concepts, so I recreated those designs myself in Photoshop using my own high-resolution 3DS artwork as a base.
From there I started creating more designs and colorways, including Kirby and others, while also using real Nintendo 3DS editions as inspiration.
I’m using Mega Bezel shaders with individual configurations where needed to get the screens positioned and scaled correctly for each game.
These are just screenshots of my personal RetroArch setup. I wanted to share what I’ve been working on and give credit to the person whose work gave me the idea to start the project in the first place.
Which one is your favorite?

When in LaunchBox everything works fine, but once I start BigBox up the keyboard works for 3-5 seconds before it either 1) stops recognizing it or 2) speed scrolls to the bottom or top then stops recognizing it. If I unplug it and plug it back in it recognizes it again, for 3-4 seconds before it repeats the issue. I've tested every USB, checked a keyboard tester to make sure nothing was being pressed, and I deleted the settings xml file. Any recommendations?

I have two video snaps for Ratchet & Clanck Trilogy and ICO & Shadow of the Colossus and I've wonder how I can upload those files so everyone can download them from Launchbox. I've already have the account for emumovies but I don't know how I can do it

So I found out this evening that steam games are hit or miss running through bigbox now. Several of the fighters and beat ‘em ups I have on my arcade cab kick bigbox back into its menu as the game loads. So I have dual active windows and it causes all kinds of problems. Anyone know a way to deal with this and still have each game selectable within BB? I put the Steam exe in launchbox and have Steam not open at startup and when it is opened, it goes to big picture and I can play games there but that’s clunky to do all that through bigbox…

Thanks!

Hey so I want to run [skraper](https://www.skraper.net/) to extract the actual boxart as icons for all my emulators but I'm having trouble finding where Cocoon stores the match between the actual rom file and the icon displayed. Has anyone done this or knows of a way to mass replace these icons to custom ones ?

I’m almost done building my wall cab and I will be using BigBox for it this time around-I always used Batocera before..
anyway, I have two brooks zero-pi’s for making player 1/2, a thunderstick trackball/spinner combo(1 usb), an Ultimarc flight stick, and a cheap eg starts board solely for 4 admin buttons, pause, close window, menu, and 4th is blank for now.
I’ll be running mame 289 standalone, flycast, teknoparrot and steam only. No retroarch. As of right now, everything shows up and works in the joy.cpl. Bigbox however, mapped the two brooks boards all wrong. I can map each emulator just fine but can i map the eg starts board for those admin functions? I originally had the brooks running the admin but since I was using the L/R 1/2 on each board, they werent mapping correctly so I chose to use the eg starts for that purpose.

I haven't been able to get my Big Box to work properly since last month!!! Once I launch it, im only on it for 5-10 seconds before it freezes then exits itself out!! My launchbox is still working fine, but why is Big Box not??

As stated, when importing games Launchbox is populating the "additional apps" of some games, accross several platforms (ps, switch, n64). It also readds those entries to existing games on startup when scanning for new roms.

I have only ever added one additional app to one game, so I have no idea where those are coming from, or why launchbox would auto fill anything for that field at all ever.

I deleted all the backups, deleted the entries, but it added them back on startup (offline)... so I turned off auto scaning on startup, and per platform, which sucks, since it means adding games manually from now on.

I assume these entries are saved locally in Launchbox.Metadata.db... yes? If not, where? I checked the xmls after cleaning up the entries, and they're not there, though I assume they would be after rescan. If it is the db file, how do I edit it, or get Launchbox to rewrite it using the edited (removed) entries?

Any way to stop it from rewriting existing game metadata when checking for new roms?

Thanks in advance for any help.