My RetroArch configuration is being repressed

MustardOS · September 20, 2025, 9:35am

This is working as intended.

We have deliberately made the default configuration for RetroArch stay as-is. Due to the amount of issues in the past relating to people changing goodness knows what in their global configuration we have opted to freeze it.

However, for those of you who know what you are doing and would like to change an odd thing or two, you can enable RetroArch Freedom Mode which is found in the Advanced Settings section.

This will stop our system from replacing the default configuration upon each launch.
Please note: we hold no responsibility if you break your configuration. You can always go to the Task Toolkit and restore your configuration back to default.

Retro Achievements Handling

Enabling Retro Achievements do NOT require RetroArch Freedom Mode.
If you configure your Retro Achievements (username and password), these settings are automatically detected and saved to a separate configuration.
This means your Retro Achievement setup is preserved independently of the frozen default configuration.
Additionally, sub labels are automatically enabled when you save your Retro Achievement credentials.

Best Practices for Configuration

You do not need to modify the internal default configuration. In fact, doing so will usually cause more harm than good in the long run.

Instead:

Use RetroArch Overrides as much as possible.
Save custom settings in a controlled way rather than modifying defaults.

Backing Up and Restoring Configurations

Go to Configuration → Storage
- Set Packages to SD2.
Go to Configuration → Customisation → RetroArch Configurations
- Save your current configuration set.

Once saved:

You can restore these configurations at any time on future installations.
You can also share them with others easily.

Creating Installable Archives

For example if you would like to package up your overlays and shaders for easy installation on future setups:

Create a single archive with two folders:
- overlays
- shaders
- and whatever else
Place your respective files inside these folders.
Rename the archive extension to .muxzip.
Place the .muxzip file inside your ARCHIVE folder on SD1 or SD2.

For more information please follow the guide here: https://community.muos.dev/t/manually-creating-installable-archives/824

From then on, you’ll be set for any future installations without needing to reconfigure everything manually.