The path I took to realizing I could just play any old retro video game right here on my old 2009 iMac was a bit more convoluted than it needed to be, but, hey, sometimes life is a bit more convoluted than it needs to be. For example, it wasn’t until I won a flat screen tv while watching the 2020 Super Bowl at my local pub that I started thinking about maybe getting an old video game system to hook up to our first tv in years, which led to me discovering that they now make mini consoles that come loaded with a bunch of games, which led to me discovering that you could also hack those mini consoles to add any games you want, which led to me ordering a Sega Mini right before the global pandemic kicked in and we all went into quarantine mode, which led to me going deep into the rabbit holes of mini console hacking and retro video game Youtube, which led to me writing blog posts about how to hack a Sega Mini and creating lists of games that I find enjoyable to play as an old millennial in the 2020s.

And because hacking my Sega Mini involved me getting a whole sh*t tonne of roms on my computer + getting a USB controller that could work for PS1/PSP and below consoles — I eventually got around to wondering if/how I could play these games on my Mac (although, I first wondered a lot about if it was possible to somehow hook my Sega Mini up to my iMac as an external monitor, because I am an idiot).

Drag your game file, (for example: '3541 - Pokemon Platinum Version (US) (XenoPhobia).nds') to your OpenEmu browser. It may take a minute or two to scan, but afterwards the game will be ready to run! To launch the game, double click the game icon, or rt click Play Game. Dec 26, 2013 Play classic video games in style with OpenEmu for Mac. OpenEmu is about to change the world of video game emulation. One console at a time. For the first time, the 'It just works' philosophy now extends to open source video game emulation on the Mac. With OpenEmu, it is extremely easy to add, browse, organize and with a compatible gamepad, play those favorite games (ROMs) you already own. In this video, I show you how to play retro games on your iMac, MacBook, MacBook Air or Mac Pro using an application called OpenEmu. Revisit your favorite re.

As you can see, sometimes blog posts can be a bit more convoluted than they need to be too, because, in order to play retro video games on your Mac, all you need to do is download and install OpenEmu, and, like with all retro video game figure-out-ery, you can find Youtube videos like this one below that’ll walk you thru all the easy steps:

So you use OpenEmu for classic game emulation on your Mac, but you have more than one mac. You’re always wishing that you’re 2 (or more) Macs could just sync up, but they don’t… Here’s the solution.

The save files for OpenEmu are totally accessible, but OpenEmu doesn’t have any native functionality for syncing your games with any of the popular Cloud Drive services. I should mention that because this is sort of a hack, this could possibly mess up your game saves, and I’m not responsible if this goes badly for you. That said… I haven’t had a problem with this in all the time that I’ve had this setup (about a year). So the solution is for us to put your saved games on the cloud drive of your choice, and then trick OpenEmu into thinking that the game saves folder is still in the same place, but in reality, it will be using what’s called a symbolic link.

Symbolic links are a way to create a reference to another folder that looks as if it really is that folder. They are different to traditional shortcuts because they share the same iNode as the actual folder you’ve attached it to. If you want to find out more about how that works, watch this video. The important thing is that your computer will think that a folder reference is really that folder, thus allowing us to relocate local files onto the cloud without your computer knowing it.

Locate your local game saves

OpenEmu is an amazing tool that's made emulation available to those without bachelors degrees in Computer Science. By following the steps in this tutorial, you're now able to relive the experience of almost any classic console right on your Mac. What games are you most looking forward to (re)playing? Let me know in the comments below.

You’re going to click on the “Go” menu in Finder and hold down the option key. You should now see a folder called “Library” that you can go to. Click on that.

Next, go into the folder called “Application Support”. This is the folder where the “OpenEmu” folder is located. So find OpenEmu and go into that folder. Next you should see a folder called “Saved Games”. Typically, the full path to that end folder would be:

Move the Saved Games Folder to the Cloud

Games Games For Openemu Mac Os

Now you’re going to move that saved games folder over into wherever you want on your cloud drive. I use Google Drive myself, because that’s been the most reliable for me, but you can use whichever one you prefer. You do need to have that cloud service installed on your computer though (meaning that you can access it just like any other folder on your Mac). I’d also recommend copying that folder to somewhere else, like your desktop, in case something goes wrong and you need to restore that folder.

Make the Symbolic Link

The next step is to put the symbolic link into your OpenEmu Folder. You just need to replace the folder you took out, with a symbolic link of the same name. I’m going to go over the general ways that you can make a symbolic link here.

To make a symbolic link, you need to…

First put your folder wherever you want it actually be (usually on some sort of cloud folder or external drive).

Next, type in the following command:

Alternatively, you can navigate to the folder where you want the shortcut and just include the full path to the actual folder you’re linking to, like so:

Games Games For Openemu Macbook

So in our case, the terminal command should look a lot like this (if you were using Google Drive as the cloud storage):

When it Syncs and What to Avoid

Games Games For Openemu Mac

Now, when you go and place one of your games in OpenEmu, only the quick saves will be synced to the cloud. So that automate state save that occurs when you exit a game is just saved locally on your computer. If you want to use the cloud saves, then you need to use the quick load feature, which you can assign to any button on your controller.

It’s also important to note that the this will only work if you have constant internet access when you’re playing your games, and you could definitely mess up your game saves if you try to do a quick save while offline.

Games For Openemu Mac

That’s All Folks!

How To Get Games For Openemu Mac

That’s it, let me know if you had issues in the comments, and I’ll try to help you out. Thanks