Backing Up

Whether you're running Visual Pinball on Windows, Linux, macOS, or Batocera, it's important to keep backups of your tables, ROMs, and configuration files. Hard drives fail, settings get reset, and file systems can get corrupted — having a solid backup can save a lot of headaches.

What Should I Back Up?

At minimum, these folders and files are worth preserving:

• tables/ — all your .vpx, .vbs, and .directb2s files
• pinmame/roms/ — essential ROM files for most tables
• pinmame/nvram/ — stores settings like coin counters and volume
• music/, pupvideos/ — media used by some tables
• cfg/, ini/, altcolor/, altsound/ — optional, but useful
• Any controller config or DOF-related files (e.g., PinscapeConfigTool, DOFConfig)

Where Are My Files?

File locations vary depending on your platform:

• Batocera
  /userdata/system/configs/vpinball/

• Windows
  C:/VisualPinball/Tables/ or wherever you installed Visual Pinball

• Linux or macOS (Standalone Builds)
  ~/vpinball

Backup Methods

Pick the method that works best for your setup. You can mix and match.

1. Manual Copy

Simple and effective. Just copy your folders to:

• An external USB drive
• A NAS or home server (via SMB)
• Cloud storage like Dropbox or Google Drive

2. Use a File Sync Tool

You can use a sync utility to automate backups.

On Windows or macOS:

• SyncThing, FreeFileSync, or ChronoSync work well
• Point them at your vpinball/ folder and your backup target

On Linux:

• Use rsync to sync to another disk or remote server

Example:

rsync -avh ~/vpinball/ /mnt/backup-drive/vpinball-backup/

To the cloud:

• Use rclone to send backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.

rclone sync ~/vpinball/ "GoogleDrive:vpinball-backup"

Keep It Simple

You don’t need a complex setup to stay protected. Even copying your tables and ROMs folder once a month to a USB stick is better than nothing.

If you’ve spent hours downloading and organizing your setup — back it up.