A "clean" reinstallation means starting from a fresh Recalbox image while keeping only your data (games, bios, saves) — and definitely not the old configuration files, which are the first carriers of the very problems a reinstallation is supposed to fix.
Before wiping everything, two faster options solve most situations:
| Your case | The right solution |
|---|---|
| Your Recalbox works, but is not up to date | Update from the interface — nothing to reinstall. |
| The system boots, but the configuration is in a dubious state | Reset to factory settings: fresh configuration, games and saves untouched, no reinstallation. |
| The system no longer boots, the SD card is dying, or you are switching storage | Clean reinstallation — follow this page. |
Copy the following folders from the share folder to your computer (or a backup drive):
roms/ — your games;bios/ — your bios;saves/ — your saves;music/, screenshots/, overlays/.Two ways to reach them:
\\RECALBOX — see File management.SHARE partition is exFAT, directly readable on Windows and macOS. Handy when the Recalbox no longer boots.Make a habit of always keeping a copy of your roms, bios and saves somewhere else than the Recalbox: no SD card lives forever.
Depending on where your games live:
roms/, bios/ and saves/ from your backup, over the network or directly into the SHARE partition.START → SYSTEM-LISTS & GAMELISTS SETTINGS → UPDATE GAMES LISTS) or reboot.On a PC installed on the internal disk: reflash a USB stick, boot on it, then run
INSTALL TO...again towards the internal disk.
Your data is already separated from the system — that is the whole point of external storage:
recalbox folder of the external device to recalbox.old (it becomes your backup).INITIALIZE when Recalbox offers it: a fresh folder tree is created.recalbox.old into the matching fresh folders.recalbox.old.Never copy the following back as-is from an old installation: they are what carries the problems over. - gamelists and scraped media (
roms/<system>/media,gamelist.xml) — rescrape with the internal scraper, much improved in 10.1; - custom themes (themes/) — reinstall their latest version; - overlays taken from old packs; - therecalbox.conffile and the emulator configs fromsystem/.
Test your Recalbox with the default settings first, then re-customize progressively: if a problem comes back, you will know where it comes from.
| You want to… | Head to |
|---|---|
| Redo the initial setup (language, controller…) | First use |
| Check your bios | Bios check |
| Rescrape your games | Internal scraper |
Need help? Join us on Discord.