Non-Steam Sync for Playnite

Why This Exists

I love Playnite as a clean, flexible launcher, but Steam offers the best controller experience: powerful per-game profiles, community layouts, Steam Input, and the overlay. This extension bridges the two so you can start games from Playnite while actually launching them through Steam—getting Playnite's organization and visuals with Steam's controller magic. It's the best of both worlds with minimal fuss.

Features

• Two-way sync between Steam shortcuts and Playnite
• Artwork support — covers, icons, and backgrounds are imported/exported automatically
• Launch via Steam — use steam://rungameid/... URLs for full controller and overlay support
• Automatic write-back — edits in Playnite sync back to Steam (name, artwork, play actions)
• Backup & restore — automatic backups before changes, with easy restore from settings
• Multi-user support — works with multiple Steam profiles on the same machine

Installation

From Playnite (Recommended)

1. In Playnite, open Add-ons (press F9 or click the gamepad menu ☰ → Add-ons)
2. Go to Browse → Libraries and search for "Non-Steam Sync"
3. Click Install and restart when prompted

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest .pext from Releases
2. In Playnite: Add-ons → Install from file… → select the .pext
3. Restart Playnite when prompted

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• Playnite 9 or later
• Steam installed
• .NET Framework 4.6.2+ (included with Windows 10+)

Setup

1. Open settings: Add-ons → Extension Settings → Non-Steam Sync
2. Set your Steam folder:
   • The path is auto-detected from the Windows registry on first run
   • Use Browse to pick a folder manually
   • Use Auto-detect to re-run registry detection
3. Path validation shows the current status:
   • ✓ Valid — Steam folder found with userdata
   • ⚠ Warning — folder exists but no userdata found
   • ✗ Invalid — folder doesn't exist
4. Optional: Enable "Launch via Steam" to use Steam URLs as the default play action

Usage

Importing from Steam → Playnite

1. Main menu → Steam Shortcuts → "Sync Steam → Playnite…"
2. Preview covers/icons, filter by text, toggle "Only new"
3. Select the shortcuts you want to import
4. Click Import — artwork is pulled from Steam's grid folder automatically

Exporting from Playnite → Steam

1. Main menu → Steam Shortcuts → "Sync Playnite → Steam…"
2. Select games with a file-based play action
3. Click Export — games are added/updated in shortcuts.vdf
4. Covers, icons, and backgrounds are copied to Steam's grid folder

Automatic Write-back

When enabled, editing a Steam Shortcuts game in Playnite (name, play action, tags, artwork) automatically updates shortcuts.vdf and Steam grid files. Changes are debounced to prevent race conditions.

Backup & Restore

• Automatic backups: Before any write to shortcuts.vdf, a timestamped backup is created
• Restore: In settings, click "Restore Backup…" to select a previous backup
• Backups are stored per Steam user: <plugin-data>/backups/<userId>/
• The last 5 backups per user are retained

Context Menu Actions

Right-click any game for quick actions:

• Add/Update in Steam — export selected games to Steam shortcuts
• Copy Steam Launch URL — copy the steam://rungameid/... URL to clipboard
• Open Steam Grid Folder — open the artwork folder in Explorer

Troubleshooting

"No shortcuts found" or nothing imports

• Check the Steam root path in settings
• The plugin searches userdata/<steamid>/config/shortcuts.vdf
• If you have multiple Steam profiles, ensure the intended one has shortcuts

Games skipped during export

When exporting from Playnite to Steam, some games may be skipped. Common reasons:

• "No executable found": The plugin couldn't detect a game executable. This happens with games from some launchers (Epic, EA, Amazon) that don't expose their exe path to Playnite.
• "No install directory": The game has no install path set in Playnite.
• "Skipped by user": You chose to skip the game when prompted.

How the plugin finds executables:

1. Uses the game's existing File action (if set)
2. Falls back to URL action (creates a double-launcher shortcut)
3. For GOG games: parses the goggame-*.info manifest
4. Scans the install directory for exe files (filters out common installers/redistributables)
5. If auto-detection fails: prompts you to browse for the executable manually

To fix skipped games:

1. Try right-clicking the game in Playnite and adding a manual play action
2. When prompted to browse, select the game's main executable
3. The selection is saved so future exports will work automatically

"Launch via Steam" doesn't work

• The game needs a known shortcut appid
• New exports compute appids automatically using Steam's CRC32 algorithm
• Try re-exporting the game to Steam

Artwork didn't copy

• Grid files live under userdata/<steamid>/config/grid/
• Ensure the folder exists and is writable
• Supported formats: PNG, JPG, ICO

Changes not appearing in Steam

• Close Steam before making changes — Steam caches shortcuts.vdf in memory
• If Steam was running, restart it to see updates

Steam warns about running

• The plugin detects if Steam is running and warns you
• For best results, close Steam before syncing

How It Works

• Uses a binary KeyValues reader/writer for Steam's shortcuts.vdf format
• Shortcut appids are computed using CRC32 (matching Steam's algorithm)
• The rungameid URL format: steam://rungameid/<gameId> where gameId encodes the appid
• StableIds (hash of exe+name) ensure consistent matching across syncs

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AI Disclosure

This project was developed with assistance from AI tools for code generation, documentation, and debugging.