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Sync and Offline Play
Cheevos keeps a copy of your RetroAchievements data on the SD card and shows that copy. Syncing updates it:
- Your profile (points, rank, last played game).
- Your list of games with their progress.
- Your awards and latest 100 unlocks. Recent unlocks are saved separately, so they don't require downloading entire achievement lists for old games. For event awards, the event's tiers too (what each tier needs, and its badge), once per event and again after 30 days.
- The achievements of the games on your SD card and the games you played recently (see Recent games in Settings), plus any game that changed since you last downloaded it. Games not refreshed for 30 days are checked a few at a time, so changes RetroAchievements makes to old sets also arrive.
- Badges and game icons (see Badge downloads in Settings), and the badges of your event and site awards.
The first sync spaces game downloads about 3 seconds apart: seconds for small libraries, and a few minutes for one with thousands of games, because only the games you play are downloaded. Image downloads are spaced a quarter of a second apart and can take longer for large sets. Your games list, profile and awards are complete either way. You can browse while syncing. If a sync is interrupted (you leave the app, the device sleeps, the battery runs out), the next one carries on where it stopped.
The bottom bar shows the current stage. During game downloads it shows, for example, Games 3/12, with a fixed total for that stage. While finding recent unlocks, it shows how many it has found; the number of history requests needed isn't known ahead of time.
Other games are downloaded when you open them: "Loading achievements…" for a second or two, then they stay on the card. To have every game's achievements on the card, for example before a trip without Wi-Fi, use Settings → Download every game. It spaces downloads about 3 seconds apart (about 2.5 hours for 3,000 games, plus images), carries on in later syncs until it's done, and can be stopped from the same place.
When it runs: when you open Cheevos (unless you turn that off in Settings), and whenever you press Start. Press Start again to cancel.
Everything you've synced is available without Wi-Fi: games, achievements, recent unlocks, badges, screenshots, profile and awards. The bottom bar says "Offline · showing saved data", and Start retries.
Three things need a connection when you ask for them:
- The achievements of a game you never opened, haven't played lately and that isn't on your SD card (unless you used Download every game).
- Badges and icons that weren't downloaded yet (they appear as soon as you're online and open a screen that needs them).
- The profile's See more numbers (points in the last 7 and 30 days). The last values fetched stay available offline.
Cheevos normally uses verified HTTPS. If the device's clock is unset or incorrect, or TLS fails for another reason, it automatically retries over HTTP. Sync Time via Network in Spruce isn't required. Cheevos uses RetroAchievements' response time for its own recent activity and sync calculations, without changing the device's clock. Recent unlock queries use the account's member date and latest unlock date from RetroAchievements, so they also work when the device still shows 1970.
The HTTP fallback sends your Web API key and account data unencrypted. See Setup.
SpruceOS ships RAOfflineProxy, which lets you earn achievements without Wi-Fi: it keeps the unlocks and sends them to RetroAchievements when you're back online. It works in casual mode only. Turn it on in Spruce Settings → RetroAchievements.
Cheevos reads the proxy's queue and shows the unlocks that are still waiting:
- in Recent unlocks, first, marked "Pending sync";
- in a game's achievements and on the achievement, marked "Pending sync" or "Unlocked offline · waiting to sync";
- in the games list, counted in the bar (grey: casual) and flagged in the count, e.g.
34+2/47(2 waiting).
Settings → RAOfflineProxy shows whether the proxy is on, online, how many unlocks are waiting and how many games it can run offline. Cheevos only reads the proxy's data. It never sends, changes or deletes its queue: the proxy does that itself.
A sync with no changes is a handful of small requests. The first sync downloads the achievement lists of the games you play, plus badges and icons as set in Badge downloads. After that, only games that changed are downloaded again.