Backup Saves and Cloud Save Syncing

Nostlan can automatically sync all of your emulator game saves and save states to a folder in your Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. so you can have a cloud backup and play across multiple devices maintaining your in-game progress! This feature is unique to Nostlan, it has never been implemented in a game launcher before.

If you support Nostlan on Patreon for just $1/month you can access this premium feature!

How it works

Nostlan will prompt you to choose where you want your save sync folder to go. If for example you choose D:/Dropbox, Nostlan will create a new folder D:/Dropbox/nostlan_saves in your Dropbox. Saves will be stored in this format nostlan_saves/{timestamp}/{folder index}. Do not delete or modify any of the files in nostlan_saves!

Backing up save data

Quitting Nostlan or pressing backup saves in the pause menu will upload/backup your local save data (ONLY for the current game library being viewed) to your Nostlan save sync folder.

Keeping saves synchronized between multiple devices

Starting Nostlan, loading a game library, or pressing update saves in the pause menu will update your local game saves (ONLY for the current game library being viewed) if there's newer save data that was uploaded by another device to your save sync folder. WARNING if you don't backup your progress when you finish gaming on one device it's possible to overwrite that progress after you upload save data from another device. Use of this feature is at your own risk. I've tested this feature and it works perfectly, just remember to quit Nostlan when you're done gaming and it will sync.

FAQ: Why is Nostlan's save sync feature necessary? Can't I just change the location of my save folders in the emulator?

Good question because this might seem unnecessary to people that haven't used modern emulators. Most modern emulators store game save data in virtual file systems and don't have a separate save data folder. My virtual file system folder mlc01 for Cemu has 41,505 files and is 11.5GB. Some virtual file systems also store games for example my dev_hdd0 for RPCS3 is 40GB. Backing up these entire folders to the cloud is not very practical. My save data for Cemu is only 38MB and for RPCS3 is only 3MB so even if people are using the free version of Dropbox they can store all their saves. Of course this can be done manually but it's a hassle. This feature makes it really convenient to sync across multiple computers or backup your saves. Also no setup is required in the settings of the emulators because Nostlan uses the default save folder location for every emulator. That makes it much easier to get up and running on a new computer.

FAQ: I don't want Nostlan to save on quit for certain systems.

Save on quit is useful cause you don't have to think about backing up your saves it just happens. If you want to disable it for some emulators edit your preferences file. Add {emu}.saves.noSaveOnQuit.

"dolphin": {
 "name": "Dolphin",
  "app": "B:/emu/wii/dolphin/Dolphin.exe",
  "cmd": [
    "${app}",
    "${game}",
    "-b"
  ],
  "saves": {
    "date": 158729401,
    "dirs": [
      "B:/emu/wii/dolphin/User/GC",
      "B:/emu/wii/dolphin/User/Wii/title"
    ],
    "noSaveOnQuit": true
  }
}

Sync progress from your Android to your PC

I don't own an Android and haven't tried this myself. I'm pretty sure this is how it would work but let me know. If you make progress on a mobile device, like an Android, that will make changes directly to the saves in your nostlan_saves folder, your saves on your PC won't be automatically updated because Nostlan looks for an increase in the timestamp number on the folder those saves are in. You can force Nostlan to pull those changes from the save sync folder by using update saves in the pause menu.