Adding games & ROMs

Leaf reads your library from a set of clearly named folders on the SD card. Drop files into the right folder and they show up in the launcher; there’s no database to manage by hand. You can fill the folders by putting the SD card in your computer, or over Wi-Fi with the Central Scrutinizer app (see Features → Apps).

Bring your own games

Leaf does not include any games. Only add ROMs you are legally entitled to use.

Folder layout

At the root of the SD card you’ll find these user-facing folders:

Roms/<SYSTEM>/      your game files, one folder per system
Images/<SYSTEM>/    box art, matching each game's filename
Saves/              in-game saves
States/             save states
BIOS/               BIOS files some systems need (see BIOS & cores)

• Roms/<SYSTEM>/ - put each game in the folder for its system, e.g. Roms/SNES/Chrono Trigger.sfc or Roms/GBA/Metroid Fusion.gba. Games can sit loose in the system folder or tucked into subfolders (a folder per game, or your own grouping) - Leaf scans down into them, so Roms/PSX/Final Fantasy VII/Final Fantasy VII.cue works just as well.
• Images/<SYSTEM>/ - put box art next to the matching system folder, named to match the game. For Roms/SNES/Chrono Trigger.sfc, use Images/SNES/Chrono Trigger.png or Images/SNES/Chrono Trigger.jpg. PNG and JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg) both work.
• Saves/ and States/ - created and managed for you as you play. See Playing games for how in-game saves and save states work.

System folders

For native PICO-8 carts and Splore, see Native PICO-8. Both FAKE-08 and native playback use Roms/PICO8/.

Each console gets one Roms/ subfolder, grouped by maker below - one folder per system, not one per emulator. Different emulators or compatibility modes for the same console are a Core choice (see Options below), not separate folders.

Folder names are not case-sensitive, and most systems accept a few aliases (Roms/NES, Roms/FC, and Roms/FAMICOM all land in the same place), so the name shown is just the recommended one. Older alias folders keep working if you already have them, but new games and box art should go in the recommended folder.

Nintendo

Folder	System
NES	Nintendo Entertainment System
FDS	Famicom Disk System
SNES	Super Nintendo / Super Famicom
N64	Nintendo 64
GB / GBC / GBA	Game Boy / Color / Advance
NDS	Nintendo DS
VB	Virtual Boy
GW	Game & Watch

Sega

Folder	System
MS	Master System
GG	Game Gear
GENESIS	Genesis / Mega Drive
SEGACD	Sega CD
32X	Sega 32X
SATURN	Saturn
DC	Dreamcast
ATOMISWAVE	Atomiswave
NAOMI	Sega Naomi, Naomi GD-ROM, and Naomi 2

NEC

Folder	System
PCE	PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
PCECD	PC Engine CD / TurboGrafx-CD
PC98	NEC PC-98

SNK

Folder	System
NEOGEO	Neo Geo - home (AES) and arcade (MVS) share this folder; needs a BIOS, see below
NGP / NGPC	Neo Geo Pocket / Color

Sony

Folder	System
PSX	PlayStation
PSP	PlayStation Portable

Atari

Folder	System
ATARI2600	Atari 2600
A7800	Atari 7800
LYNX	Atari Lynx

Commodore

Folder	System
AMIGA	Amiga (OCS/ECS/AGA, CDTV, and CD32)

Other

Folder	System
WS / WSC	WonderSwan / Color
COLECO	ColecoVision
VECTREX	Vectrex
PICO8	Pico-8
DOS	MS-DOS
EASYRPG	EasyRPG (RPG Maker 2000/2003)
ARCADE	Arcade (FBNeo, recommended for most arcade sets; Neo Geo sets go in NEOGEO)
PORTS	Ports (native game ports)

Advanced arcade users can also use Roms/MAME/ for MAME 03+ zipped ROM sets. Use that only when your set is built for that core; otherwise put arcade games in Roms/ARCADE/. The one exception is Neo Geo: FinalBurn Neo runs those too, but they belong in Roms/NEOGEO/ so they get their own system in the launcher.

Naomi, Naomi GD-ROM, and Naomi 2 are one system in Leaf. Put content from all three hardware families in Roms/NAOMI/; do not create separate GD-ROM or Naomi 2 folders. Their BIOS archives stay separate by hardware generation: BIOS/dc/naomi.zip serves base Naomi and Naomi GD-ROM, while BIOS/dc/naomi2.zip serves Naomi 2.

Content paks from Pak Rat add systems of their own, each with its own folder. ScummVM uses Roms/SCUMMVM/, and J2ME uses Roms/J2ME/ for Java phone games. These folders work once the pak is installed.

Supported game formats

These are the accepted game-file formats per folder:

Folder	Supported formats	Notes
NES	.fds, .nes, .unf, .unif, .7z, .zip
FDS	.fds, .nes, .7z, .zip
SNES	.bs, .bsx, .dx2, .fig, .gd3, .gd7, .sfc, .smc, .st, .swc, .7z, .zip
N64	.n64, .v64, .z64, .7z, .zip
GB	.bin, .dmg, .gb, .gbc, .7z, .zip
GBC	.bin, .dmg, .gb, .gbc, .7z, .zip
GBA	.bin, .gba, .7z, .zip
NDS	.nds, .7z, .zip
VB	.vb, .vboy, .7z, .zip
GW	.mgw, .7z, .zip
MS	.32x, .68k, .bin, .chd, .gen, .iso, .md, .smd, .sms, .7z, .zip
GG	.bin, .gg, .7z, .zip
GENESIS	.32x, .68k, .bin, .chd, .gen, .iso, .md, .smd, .sms, .7z, .zip
SEGACD	.chd, .cue, .iso, .7z, .zip, .m3u
32X	.32x, .68k, .bin, .chd, .gen, .iso, .md, .smd, .sms, .7z, .zip
SATURN	.ccd, .chd, .cue, .iso, .mds, .zip, .m3u	Standalone supports direct .ccd, .chd, .cue, .iso, and .mds; .zip and .m3u use RetroArch only
DC	.cdi, .chd, .cue, .dat, .gdi, .iso, .m3u	.zip is not accepted directly
ATOMISWAVE	.cdi, .chd, .cue, .dat, .gdi, .iso, .zip, .m3u	Keep zipped sets at their original shortnames
NAOMI	.cdi, .chd, .cue, .dat, .gdi, .iso, .zip, .m3u	Keep zipped sets at their original shortnames
PCE	.ccd, .chd, .cue, .img, .iso, .pce, .7z, .zip
PCECD	.ccd, .chd, .cue, .img, .iso, .m3u	.zip is not accepted directly
PC98	.2hd, .88d, .98d, .cmd, .d88, .d98, .dup, .fdd, .fdi, .hdd, .hdi, .hdm, .hdn, .nhd, .tfd, .thd, .xdf, .zip	Use .cmd when multiple images must be mounted together
NEOGEO	.7z, .zip	neocd.zip, neocdz.zip, and neogeo.zip are BIOS/ignored as games
NGP	.ngc, .ngp, .7z, .zip
NGPC	.ngc, .ngp, .7z, .zip
PSX	.cbn, .chd, .cue, .img, .iso, .mdf, .pbp, .toc, .m3u	.zip is not accepted directly
PSP	.chd, .cso, .iso, .pbp	.zip is not accepted directly
ATARI2600	.a26, .bin, .7z, .zip
A7800	.a78, .bin, .7z, .zip
LYNX	.lnx, .zip
AMIGA	.adf, .adz, .dms, .fdi, .raw, .hdf, .hdz, .lha, .cue, .ccd, .chd, .nrg, .mds, .iso, .uae, .rp9, .zip, .7z, .m3u	One folder covers OCS/ECS, AGA, CDTV, and CD32
WS	.pc2, .ws, .wsc, .7z, .zip
WSC	.pc2, .ws, .wsc, .7z, .zip
COLECO	.bin, .col, .rom, .7z, .zip
VECTREX	.bin, .vec, .7z, .zip
PICO8	.p8, .png
DOS	.bat, .com, .conf, .dosz, .exe, .ima, .img, .ins, .iso, .jrc, .tc, .vhd, .zip, .m3u, .m3u8
EASYRPG	.easyrpg, .ldb, .zip	RPG_RT.ldb is the expected project entry file
ARCADE	.zip	neocd.zip, neocdz.zip, and neogeo.zip are BIOS/ignored as games
PORTS	.sh
MAME	.zip	Optional advanced folder for MAME 03+ sets

Naomi and Atomiswave arcade sets

A .zip in either of these folders is a MAME/Flycast ROM set, not a generic compressed game. Its filename before .zip is a machine-readable game ID. Do not replace that shortname with the friendly title: Flycast will not identify the game. Leaf shows the friendly title automatically, so doa2m.zip appears as Dead or Alive 2 Millennium without changing the file on disk.

On the SD card, a cartridge example keeps its set archive alongside the matching BIOS:

Roms/NAOMI/doa2m.zip
BIOS/dc/naomi.zip

A Naomi GD-ROM set uses its shortname ZIP as the launchable entry and keeps the CHD in a same-shortname subfolder:

Roms/NAOMI/ikaruga.zip
Roms/NAOMI/ikaruga/gdl-0010.chd
BIOS/dc/naomi.zip

Launch ikaruga.zip, not the CHD. Split sets may also require their parent ZIP. Keep every archive, parent, subfolder, and media filename exactly as supplied by a compatible MAME/Flycast set. Renaming an incompatible dump does not convert it into a compatible set.

For a wider title-to-shortname lookup, Flycast’s upstream Naomi compatibility list includes a romset column. Its compatibility results were collected against an older core, so use the names as a lookup aid rather than a Leaf compatibility guarantee.

PC-98 games that need multiple disks at startup

Some PC-98 software expects Disk A in the first floppy drive and Disk B in the second drive immediately at startup. Launching Disk A by itself can produce a Not ready message. Keep the images together and add a UTF-8 .cmd file in the same folder, for example:

Dragon Knight 4 Special Disk.cmd
Dragon Knight 4 Special Disk (Disk 1 of 2)(Disk A).fdd
Dragon Knight 4 Special Disk (Disk 2 of 2)(Disk B).fdd

The .cmd file contains one line. Quote every filename that contains spaces:

np2kai "Dragon Knight 4 Special Disk (Disk 1 of 2)(Disk A).fdd" "Dragon Knight 4 Special Disk (Disk 2 of 2)(Disk B).fdd"

The first floppy image is mounted in FDD1 and the second in FDD2. Launch the .cmd entry from Jawaka; Jawaka hides the disk files referenced by that command so the game appears only once. Unreferenced images remain visible as normal. Use RetroArch’s Disc Control later if the software asks for another disk.

Amiga games, archives, and multiple disks

Keep every supported Amiga family in Roms/AMIGA/: A500/OCS, A600/ECS, A1200/A4000/AGA, CDTV, and CD32 do not use separate public folders. PUAE chooses the machine model from the content type and familiar path tags such as AGA, CDTV, or CD32. For example, include CDTV in the filename or a parent-folder name when CD content must boot as CDTV rather than the normal CD32 default.

Leaf passes individual game .zip and .7z archives to PUAE intact. If you download a large collection ZIP containing many per-game ZIPs, unpack the outer collection once on your computer and copy only the individual game archives to Roms/AMIGA/. Do not unpack a preinstalled WHDLoad .lha; launch the LHA directly. Writes made inside a temporarily extracted ZIP are not repacked, so use an uncompressed disk image, a dedicated save disk, or a WHDLoad LHA when a game must write persistent data.

For a multi-disk game, create a text .m3u file with one disk per line and launch that playlist. Leaf shows the M3U as the game and hides its referenced members, including entries with friendly labels such as Disk 1.adf|Game Disk or ZIP members such as Game.zip#Disk 1.adf. PUAE also understands #SAVEDISK:Label in an M3U. Change media with RetroArch’s Disc Control menu.

Leaf deliberately does not list .ipf, loose .slave, or loose .info files. IPF needs a separately packaged CAPSIMG library that this release does not ship; preinstalled WHDLoad games should remain in .lha archives.

A system appears in the launcher once its emulator core is available on the device. If a folder’s system isn’t showing up, its core may not be installed; see BIOS & cores.

A second SD card

The Pocket 1 has two microSD slots. The card Leaf boots from is the Primary; a card in the second slot is picked up automatically as an extra Secondary source of games.

Give the second card the same folder layout as the first - Roms/<SYSTEM>/, Images/<SYSTEM>/, and so on at its root. Leaf merges both cards into one library, so a system’s games from either card appear together under that one system, and you don’t need to browse per card.

Format it FAT32

The second card must be partitioned and formatted FAT32. Leaf mounts it as a vfat volume, so an exFAT card (which is how most cards over 32 GB come formatted out of the box) will not mount at all. Reformat it as FAT32 first.

You can add or remove the second card while the device is running: Leaf notices the change and rescans on its own. Before pulling it out, use Settings → System → SD Cards so nothing is mid-write.

Removing the second card doesn’t throw away anything Leaf knows about its games. They stay in your lists, but they won’t launch while the card is out. Their favorites, recents, playtime, and per-game settings are kept, and work again when you put the same card back.

Leaf tracks these games by the slot and their path on the card, not by the physical card. A different card in the second slot replaces the previous card’s entries on its first scan, and their favorites, recents, playtime, and per-game settings go with them. If you put the old card back later, its games return as new entries, without any of that.

Moving games off the second card

A game you move to the main card becomes a new entry, so its favorite, playtime, and per-game settings don’t follow it. The old entry also stays in your lists, which makes the game show up twice. Rescanning with the second card out won’t remove it, because Leaf keeps a missing card’s entries in case it comes back.

To move your games and clear the old entries:

1. On a computer, copy Roms/, Images/, Saves/, and States/ from the second card to the main card. Games on the second card keep their saves on that card, so the copies on the main card won’t find them otherwise.
2. Empty the second card’s Roms/ folder, but keep the folder. Any FAT32 card with an empty Roms/ folder at its root also works.
3. Put the card in the second slot, press MENU, and choose Actions → Rescan Library. The old entries disappear.
4. If you don’t want the card in the device, unmount it with Settings → System → SD Cards and take it out. The old entries stay gone.

Box art

You can add box art two ways: drop it in yourself, or let Leaf fetch it.

Add it yourself. Name each image to match its game file (same name, image extension) and place it in Images/<SYSTEM>/. For Roms/SNES/Chrono Trigger.sfc, use Images/SNES/Chrono Trigger.png. Leaf pairs them up automatically and shows the art in the game list.

Your art can be PNG or JPEG (.png, .jpg, or .jpeg), and the extension’s case doesn’t matter: .jpg, .JPG, and .JpG all work. If a game has more than one image in the same folder, Leaf uses the PNG first, then the JPG, then the JPEG. Where the image sits counts before its format, so art in Images/<SYSTEM>/ is used even when a PNG for the same game is in a folder Leaf checks after it.

On an ext4 card, file names are case-sensitive. Match the game’s file name and folder exactly, capital letters included: Chrono Trigger.sfc pairs with Chrono Trigger.jpg, not chrono trigger.jpg.

Let Leaf fetch it. Leaf can download box art from ScreenScraper.fr. Sign in once under Settings → Games → Accounts → ScreenScraper.fr, then start a scrape. For a single game, press X on it and choose Scrape Artwork. To do whole systems at once (or every system), use Settings → Games → Scrape Artwork, which lists All Systems plus each system with its missing-art count. Fetched art lands in Images/<SYSTEM>/ exactly as if you had added it by hand, and appears in the list as soon as each download finishes. Which image type and region it picks is set under Settings → Games (Artwork Priority and Region Priority).

PC-98, Atomiswave, and the complete Naomi family are supported by live scraping. For a Naomi title, Leaf tries the base Naomi catalog first, then Naomi GD-ROM, then Naomi 2. It computes the game hash once and stops as soon as the correct family matches; no extra setup is needed. Artwork still lands at Images/<SYSTEM>/<game-name>.png, including Images/NAOMI/ for every Naomi family.

A Naomi miss can query all three family catalogs, so scraping a large unmatched Naomi set can use more of ScreenScraper’s daily request allowance than a single-catalog system.

Amiga scraping follows the same pattern. Leaf tries the general Amiga catalog, then AGA, CDTV, and CD32, stopping on the first match. You keep one Images/AMIGA/ artwork folder and do not need to choose the hardware family by hand.

Options menu

Press X on a game or a system in the launcher to open its Options menu. This is where per-item actions live, so they stay out of the main list:

• Display Name - rename how the game or system shows in the launcher.
• Core - choose which emulator core runs this game or system, when more than one is available.
• Saturn BIOS - appears only when YabaSanshiro Standalone is the emulator in force. Choose Default, HLE, or one of your own BIOS files. See Saturn BIOS selection.
• Performance - set a per-game or per-system performance profile that overrides the global default.
• Scrape Artwork - on a game, fetch and replace its box art. While that scrape is queued the row reads Cancel Scraping. To scrape a whole system or every system at once, use Settings → Games → Scrape Artwork instead.
• Reset Overrides - clear the custom name, core, performance, and Saturn BIOS settings you set above.
• Hide Game - on a game, take it out of your lists without deleting anything. See Hiding a game.
• Delete Game - on a game, delete its files from your SD card. It isn’t offered on every system. See Deleting a game.

Scraping runs in the background, so you can leave the menu, keep browsing, or even play a game while art downloads.

Hiding a game

Hide Game takes a game out of your library without touching its files. It disappears right away from its system’s list and game count, Favorites, Recents, Search, and the game switcher, and a message tells you where to find it again. Its file, saves, states, artwork, favorite, and Options settings all stay as they were, and come back with it when you unhide it.

To bring a game back, open Settings → Games → Hidden Games, pick it, and press A (Unhide). See Settings → Games.

• Hide Game works on every system.
• Hiding is per card. A copy of the same game on your other SD card stays visible.
• A game stays hidden through rescans, and while its card is out.
• A game you already picked for 5-Game Mode stays on the focus screen after you hide it, but you can’t pick a hidden game.
• Leaf versions before 0.13.0 don’t know about hidden games. If you go back to one, your hidden games show up again, and they’re hidden again when you update.

Deleting a game

Delete Game removes a game from your SD card: the file you launch, and every file that file names. Use it to free space without taking the card out.

There is no undo

Deleted files are gone. There is no undo and no Trash. Leaf doesn’t check whether another game uses the same files, so read the file list before you confirm.

Choose Options → Delete Game and Leaf checks the game’s files, then shows you:

• how many files the game has, how much space they take, and which card it’s on
• that deletion is permanent, and might not delete every file your game uses
• that your saves, states, and artwork are kept

Press X (Files) to see each file with its card and size, and X again to go back. Cancel is selected first. To go ahead, press Right to select Delete Game, then press A. Keep your cards in while Leaf deletes. When it’s done, Leaf tells you how many files it deleted. If a file can’t be deleted, Leaf stops, tells you which one, and Files shows what was removed. The file you launch goes last, so you can open Delete Game again to delete the rest.

What it deletes

Leaf reads the file you launch and follows the files it names:

• A .m3u playlist takes every disc it lists, and each disc’s tracks.
• A .cue takes its tracks, usually .bin files.
• A .gdi or .toc takes the tracks it lists.
• A PC-98 .cmd takes the disk images it names.
• Any other file, such as a .chd, .zip, or .sfc, is deleted on its own.

The game also leaves your library. Its favorite, its place in Recents and 5-Game Mode, and its Options settings go with it, and putting the file back later doesn’t bring them back.

What stays

• Your saves, states, and artwork. They stay in Saves/, States/, and Images/. Delete them from your computer if you don’t want them.
• Files the game doesn’t name. A .sub or .sbi file beside a PlayStation image stays. A .ccd, .mds, .uae, or .conf file is deleted on its own, and the images it uses stay.
• Folders. Leaf never removes a folder, so a game’s own folder stays on the card, even when it’s empty.

Shared files aren’t protected

If two games use the same file, deleting one deletes that file, and the other game stops working. For example, two playlists that list the same disc share it. The Files list shows exactly what goes, so check it before you confirm.

Games that can’t be deleted

Delete Game isn’t in the menu for:

• arcade systems, including ARCADE, MAME, NEOGEO, NAOMI, and ATOMISWAVE, because deleting a parent ROM set breaks the clones that need it
• Ports, because PortMaster installs and removes those
• systems a content pak adds, such as ScummVM and J2ME, because the pak manages its own games
• EasyRPG, because each game is a folder

Use Hide Game for those, or delete the files from your computer.

DOS, Amiga, and PC-98 games can store your progress inside their own disk or hard-drive images. For those systems, the confirmation also warns that this progress is erased with the image.

Leaf won’t delete while your library is scanning, or while the game’s card or your launcher card is read-only. A read-only card gets the same SD card check and repair offer you see elsewhere.

Multi-disc games

Leaf handles multi-disc games (PlayStation, Sega CD, and the like) for you. Name the disc files with the usual (Disc 1), (Disc 2) tags, drop them in the system folder - loose or in a subfolder of their own - and Leaf groups them into a single .m3u playlist automatically. The game then shows up once instead of once per disc, and RetroArch reads that playlist to swap discs from its in-game menu.

Prefer to manage it yourself? Add your own .m3u listing the disc files and Leaf uses it as-is - it never overwrites a playlist you made by hand.

Hide Game and Delete Game work on the whole game, never on one disc. Deleting a multi-disc game deletes its playlist and every disc in it, so a rescan doesn’t bring it back. See Deleting a game.

Arcade names

Arcade ROMs are named by their short internal ID (mslug, 1942, sf2ce) rather than the full title. Leaf recognizes these for arcade and Neo Geo sets and shows the friendly name instead, so mslug reads as Metal Slug and your arcade list looks like the rest of your library. There’s nothing to switch on; it happens as your games are scanned.

To override a name, drop a map.txt in that system’s folder (for example Roms/ARCADE/map.txt) with one romname = Your Title line per game - the romname is the zip’s name without its extension. Your entries win over the built-in list.

BIOS-dependent systems

Some systems need a BIOS file you provide yourself (Neo Geo, for example, needs neogeo.zip in BIOS/). Arcade games are also picky about ROM-set versions. See BIOS & cores for the details.