Table of Contents

Application arguments

Playnite executable accepts the following arguments from command line.

Argument Description
--start <gameId> Starts the game with the specified library ID.
--actionindex <index> Used in conjunction with --start. Can specify action to run by number index. It's an item index from the list of items you would be presented on manual game startup. For example, if you would want to run an action that appears second in the list, use --actionindex 1 (1 because indexing starts at 0).
--nolibupdate Skips library update on startup.
--startdesktop Forces the application to start in Desktop mode. If there's an existing instance already running in Fullscreen mode, it will be switched to Desktop mode.
--startfullscreen Forces the application to start in Fullscreen mode. If there's an existing instance already running in Desktop mode, it will be switched to Fullscreen mode.
--forcesoftrender Forces the application to use software render, disabling GPU acceleration.
--forcedefaulttheme Forces the application to use the default theme.
--hidesplashscreen Won't show startup splash screen.
--clearwebcache Clears web (CEF) cache on startup.
--shutdown Shuts down any existing instances of Playnite.
--safestartup Start playnite in Safe Mode, only loading built-in extensions and using default theme.
--backup Backup Playnite data
--restorebackup Restore Playnite data from backup
--userdatadir Redirects Playnite to store and load user data from specified folder.

URI commands

Command Description Example
start Start a game. playnite://playnite/start/64f78cd1-0b00-4271-a9e1-89abc55f66cc
start supports startup of specific action index the same way as --actionindex cmdline argument. See that option for more info. playnite://playnite/start/64f78cd1-0b00-4271-a9e1-89abc55f66cc/1
showgame Show game details for a specific game. playnite://playnite/showgame/64f78cd1-0b00-4271-a9e1-89abc55f66cc
search Open global search. Can specify default search keyword. Multi word search terms have to be properly encoded. playnite://playnite/search or playnite://playnite/search/quake%203

Extensions can register custom commands via Playnite SDK.