The latest version is 3.0.1 (released 2024-03-16)
New to ES-DE? Check out the Frequently Asked Questions and
Frequently Asked Questions for Android
Detailed documentation is available in the User guide and Android documentation
ES-DE is no longer present on the Amazon Appstore and we have instead moved to self-publishing via Patreon. If you have bought ES-DE from Amazon then ask them for a refund, you should not need to pay twice for ES-DE to get future updates.
News 2024-03-16: ES-DE 3.0.1 is now available for download! This release adds support for Android 10, removes support for the Yuzu emulator and includes a number of additional minor improvements and bug fixes. See the Changelog for all details. If you are using the Android release, then you can find the download link to the latest APK on Patreon.
ES-DE is a frontend for browsing and launching games from your multi-platform game collection.
It comes preconfigured for use with RetroArch and a large selection of standalone emulators. It's also fully customizable so you can easily expand it to include emulators or applications not covered by the bundled configuration.
Modern and attractive user interface
Full controller navigation support
Supports over 150 different game systems
Ships preconfigured - minimal setup required
Simple to use, you'll be retrogaming within minutes
Still highly customizable if you prefer to tailor your setup
Built-in scraper for downloading game info and game media
Supports scraping of images, videos and game manuals
Lots of configuration options
Fully themeable which allows for very different looks
Ships with three comprehensive themes
Lots of additional high-quality themes available for download
The screenshot above shows the Slate theme that is bundled with ES-DE as an alternative to the default Linear theme
The latest version is 3.0.1 (released 2024-03-16)
For the portable release make sure to read the README.txt file that is included in the ZIP archive.
10.15 "Catalina" and later
The first AppImage should work on most distributions. The second AppImage is specific to the Valve Steam Deck.
Themes are most easily installed via the built-in theme downloader, but you can also browse the web version of the themes list which provides some additional details.
Below are a few examples of themes from this list to give a feeling for how different the application can look depending on the theme set used.
Alekfull NX (Revisited)
Atari 50 Menu
Art Book Next
Retrofix (Revisited)
There are videos available to explain the basic ES-DE installation, and there is a comprehensive user guide that covers setup and configuration in more detail. This guide also covers all application settings. If you need additional support, join our Discord server. For new users the FAQ is a good starting point as it answers some common questions about ES-DE. There is also specific documentation for Android as well as an Android FAQ.
This video shows how to install ES-DE on Windows 10 although it's also applicable to Windows 11 and 8.1. As of ES-DE v1.1 you no longer need to set the Path variable manually as RetroArch will be auto-detected.
This video shows how to install ES-DE on macOS, and should be applicable to all macOS versions supported by ES-DE.
This video shows how to install ES-DE on Linux (Kubuntu). It's however also applicable to Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. As of ES-DE v1.1 no workaround is required any longer if you've installed the Flatpak version of RetroArch.
The ES-DE repository is hosted on GitLab, head over there for a lot of additional information. The Kanban board is where you can see the development progress.
ES-DE by itself does not provide any emulation support, instead it's relying on a number of different emulators that you need to install separately. RetroArch is set as the default emulator where applicable, so it's a good starting point to at least install this together with ES-DE.
One of the most important features provided by ES-DE is the ability to scrape for game information and game media. Two scraper services are supported, TheGamesDB and ScreenScraper with the latter being the primary choice as they have a better database of information and media. It's a good idea to register an account with them as their service is frequently closed for non-registered users.