Cloud saves between phone and PC emulators.

[baroterri9000]

Picture it - you’re playing your retro games with enhancements and at high resolution on PC. You save your game, leave the house and whip out your phone, continuing your progress on the bus or train.

I’ve been looking into this for a while (since emulators came to iOS) and I was wondering if anyone has managed to get cloud saves going on their mobile emulators.
On iOS, I know RetroArch lets you cloud save into iCloud, and Delta does Drop Box and google drive.
The dream is to get Suikoden rolling on Duckstation on pc and RetroArch on mobile.

Has anyone had experience/success configuring this before?

 

[Hotwer]

I believe what you're describing is Syncthing.
Here's a detailed guide on how to setup the whole thing.

 

[PaleFolklore]

I believe something like this is possible with the Dolphin emulator. That said, your question likely comes down to the specifics of each emulator—whether or not they support cloud save functionality. While you mentioned RetroArch and DuckStation as examples, I’m not sure this feature can be discussed in a broad, general sense, as implementation varies between emulators.

In other words, it's somewhat possible to do what you're suggesting, but probably not as well-integrated as it may look like.

Post automatically merged: Mar 6, 2025

I believe what you're describing is Syncthing.

Also a very good answer — I second this

 

[AIkra69420]

I use an app called syncthing for this purpose. It works seamlessly for Retroarch, just make sure your save settings for all your devices are the same, else your device won't detect your new saves when it syncs.

The only downside is that it only works on your own local network so any changes will only take place when the target devices are connected on the same network when the app is running, though this is easily remedied with a self hosted VPN like Zerotier and Tailscale to connect to your home network remotely

edit:
lol others have pointed out the benefits of syncthing as I was typing this reply, but you get the idea.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Retroarch :
Settings > Saving > Sort saves into folders by core names

Then Syncthing.

Runs well here but keep in mind some systems like PSX will overwrite your saved files if you load a save state. So it's good practice in Syncthing to set file versioning. Mine is set to keep a ghost copy of the file in a temp folder for three days.

 

[baroterri9000]

Such great advice so quickly. Thanks everyone, I will give Sync Thing a go. It’s not as convenient and magical as a cloud save, but as Alkra mentioned earlier, a self hosted VPN can help bridge that gap. I’ve been meaning to kick off my home lab project for a while anyway.

If anyone else had any ideas or would like to share their experience, I’d love to hear it.

 

[Patches]

I too look forward to this being commonly baked in as I play between different devices and memory management is not always as simple as dragging and dropping.

 

[baroterri9000]

Just a minor update from me. It looks like SynchThing doesn’t have an iOS client, owing to good ol’ Apple’s restrictions on how apps can operate. There might still be a way (an app called mobius on the app store) but we’ll see.

 

[Patches]

Just a minor update from me. It looks like SynchThing doesn’t have an iOS client, owing to good ol’ Apple’s restrictions on how apps can operate. There might still be a way (an app called mobius on the app store) but we’ll see.

Don't hold your breath with that. Didn't iOS just finally get gba emulation 20 years after everyone else?

 

[chufflord]

I believe what you're describing is Syncthing.
Here's a detailed guide on how to setup the whole thing.

Great shout, I've been wanting to set up something like this for my PS2 stuff since I hop between devices a lot. Cheers!