SyncLauncher (TBD) is an application/emulator launcher that uses rclone to presync and postsync your game save data from and to a cloud storage provider you have credentials to use.

the benefits of using a cloud storage provider (i.e. google drive, dropbox, proton drive, S3, whatever rclone supports) is that it also functionally acts as an easily-accessible backup, instead of an "ephemeral save" that you're unable to access outside the launcher.

first time use

you'll be prompted to enter the path to your rclone executable - then you'll be prompted to select an rclone compatible service, enter the necessary credentials for that service, and a name to that remote destination, which will be tested before being accepted, as we don't want you losing your saves!

defining a game and its save

when defining a game, you'll just need to give us the executables path, but you'll need to know where its saves are stored, usually this is in a universal location, i.e. AppData, however, we don't want to commit to guessing, so you'll be defining where they're stored per game - this does mean you're technically able to make a directory choice that's too broad, so be sure to double check your paths as you don't want to end up accidentally dumping the entirety of your system into your google drive free tier and blow your shit up TBD: if we'll have seperate things to handle emulators & emulated titles - i.e. dolphin & totallyLegitGameCubeGame.iso as one game, and dolphin & totallyLegitOtherGameCubeGame.iso as another

when running a game

before running the game, we'll make an attempt to connect to your cloud storage using the credentials you've previously provided to pull the save (Assuming not first-time sync) so that your game save is up to date! once you're done playing, we'll be sure to start a syncing process back to your cloud provider so that your game save is up-to-date there for next time, maybe on another device! that's up to you!

technologies used

for this, despite knowing and understanding the concerns, we have an electron frontend with a python backend. more later. lol.

using python 3.14 during development, likely works on different versions, can't think of anything that's super version specific.