Your Recalbox refuses to update and tells you the system partition is too small? This page explains why, and walks you through getting back to an up-to-date Recalbox without losing your games, your bios or your saves.
In short: copy the
roms/,bios/andsaves/folders from your Recalbox to your computer, reinstall Recalbox, copy those three folders back where they belong — and you are done. The rest of this page is just those three moves, in detail.
When the update starts, Recalbox displays UNABLE TO UPDATE:
Recalbox adds many new features with each new version, which gradually increases the size of the system.
The system partition on your installation is too small to accommodate version 10.1.1.To continue receiving updates, you must reinstall Recalbox by downloading the latest image from www.recalbox.com.
Nothing is broken and nothing is lost. The update never started: your current Recalbox keeps working, with your games and saves untouched. You can keep playing and do the procedure below later.
To update itself, Recalbox downloads the new version next to the old one, on the boot partition (the one named RECALBOX). So it needs enough free space on that partition, on top of the system already installed.
Here is what 10.1.1 requires:
| Machine | Free space needed on the system partition |
|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 3 | ≈ 1.5 GB |
| Raspberry Pi 4 / 400 | ≈ 1.5 GB |
| Raspberry Pi 5 / 500 | ≈ 1.5 GB |
| PC (x86_64) | ≈ 2.1 GB |
That partition's size is decided when you flash the image, and it has never changed since:
| Image used for the installation | System partition |
|---|---|
| Recalbox 9.x and earlier | 3 GB |
| Recalbox 10.0 and later | 6 GB |
If your Recalbox was installed from a 9.x image or older, then updated from version to version, its 3 GB partition is now too full of system files to hold the new version as well. An installation made from a 10.0 image or later is not affected.
That partition cannot be enlarged afterwards: it sits at the very start of the media, wedged before your data. That is why the message asks you to reinstall.
The idea is simple: put your games, bios and saves safely on your computer, reinstall Recalbox cleanly, then put those three folders back.
Reinstalling erases everything on the SD card (or the USB stick). Do not skip the backup step, and make sure the copy is complete before you flash.
START → SHUTDOWN RECALBOX), and wait until it is fully off before unplugging it.| Partition | Format | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
RECALBOX |
FAT32 | The system and boot files — leave it alone |
SHARE |
exFAT | Your games, bios, saves and settings — this is the one we want |
SHAREis exFAT: it can be read directly on Windows, macOS and Linux, with no extra software. If it does not show up in Windows Explorer, follow The "SHARE" partition does not appear in Windows — it is almost always a missing drive letter.
Create a folder on your computer, for example Recalbox-backup, and copy these three folders into it from the SHARE partition:
| Folder | What you would lose without it |
|---|---|
roms/ |
All your games |
bios/ |
Your bios, and with them several consoles that will not boot |
saves/ |
Your in-game saves and save states |
Copy, do not move: until the new installation is verified, the card is still your only other copy. Depending on how many roms you have, this takes anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour.
Before moving on, open the backup folder and check that roms/ really contains your systems, and that the copy finished without any error message.
You may also copy
music/,screenshots/oroverlays/if you care about them. Leavesystem/out, though: see "What not to put back" below.
This is exactly the operation you went through for your first install, detailed in Preparation and installation.
On a Raspberry Pi, the easiest way is Raspberry Pi Imager, which fetches the image for you:
CHOOSE OS → Emulation and game OS → Recalbox → your Pi model.CHOOSE STORAGE → your microSD card.WRITE.On other devices (PC, handhelds), first download your machine's .img.xz image from the download page, then in Raspberry Pi Imager: CHOOSE OS → Use custom → the downloaded file, CHOOSE STORAGE, and WRITE.
Never unpack the
.img.xzfile: the flashing tool takes care of it.
Then put the card back in the machine and boot it.
On the first boot, Recalbox recreates the data partitions on the remaining space, then reboots on its own. Do not cut the power during this step, even if the screen seems frozen for a while.
Wait until you reach the system list: that tells you the SHARE partition has been created, and it is the one that will hold your data.
SHARE partition: it holds brand new, empty roms/, bios/ and saves/ folders again.| From your backup | To the SHARE partition |
|---|---|
Recalbox-backup/roms/ |
roms/ |
Recalbox-backup/bios/ |
bios/ |
Recalbox-backup/saves/ |
saves/ |
Answer yes if your computer offers to merge the folders: your games settle in alongside the system folders Recalbox created.
START → SYSTEM-LISTS & GAMELISTS SETTINGS → UPDATE GAMES LISTS.Your systems come back with your games, and Recalbox is up to date.
You can also copy your games back over the network once Recalbox has booted, if you would rather not handle the card again.
Your gamelist.xml files and your media come back with the roms/ folder: your games show up exactly as before, artwork included. Nothing to redo there.
That said, the scraper was overhauled in 10.1 and fetches media your previous scrape does not hold: logos (Clear, Carbon, Steel, marquees, SteamGrid), 2D or 3D boxes as you prefer, maps, manuals and the new Tips & Tricks files. These are what feed the new LOGO view and manual browser.
So this is a good moment to run a full scrape: START → SCRAPER → SCRAPE NOW. Optional, more or less long depending on the size of your collection, and it can wait — your games are already playable.
The whole point of reinstalling is to start from a clean configuration. Do not copy these back from your old installation:
system/recalbox.conf file and the emulator configurations — these are what carry old, now incompatible settings over;Your controllers, your network and your preferences have to be set up once more: that is the price of a healthy installation.
If you use external storage — a USB stick or hard drive dedicated to roms — your data is not on the SD card and the procedure is shorter: it is described in Proper reinstallation.
You may also run into this warning:
Unable to verify that there is enough space left on the boot partition. The update may not complete successfully.
That one is different: Recalbox could not measure the free space, and carries on with the update anyway. It usually completes normally. If it fails, this page applies.