Synchotic is a tool to automate the downloading and updating of charts from Google Drive for rhythm games like Clone Hero and YARG. Pick from a curated selection of popular drives and setlists (or add your own), press sync, wait, and enjoy the best charts the community has to offer! Ever been confused about which charts people actually need to play online? This is not a bad place to start.
| Platform | File | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | synchotic-launcher.exe |
Keep it anywhere. |
| macOS | Synchotic-launcher-macos.zip |
Unzip and drag Synchotic.app to Applications. |
| Linux | Synchotic-launcher-x86_64.AppImage |
Keep it anywhere, mark it executable. |
Double-click the launcher and it'll run automatic updates on Synchotic. The first time you run it'll ask where your library goes and how to authenticate downloads.
In the left column are chart drives that contain setlists in the right column. To enable/disable any drive or setlist press space. To jump into the setlists list press tab on a drive.
To sync press S. This will download, update and delete files to match exclusively the setlists you've selected.
Synchotic keeps one local folder in sync with the drives and setlists you choose. BE WARNED: any unmanaged files in this folder WILL BE DELETED on sync. Pick an empty folder or a previous sync folder or face the consequences...
Change it anytime under Settings > Library.
Google prevents anonymous downloads for most popular large chart packs. To get around this limitation you can choose to authenticate Synchotic with your Google account in a few different ways.
- Sign in with rclone (easiest): sign in to your Google account to give rclone read-only access and you're done. Google will retire this option sometime in 2026.
- Bring Your Own Credentials (best): setup takes ~10 minutes and is a bit confusing, but you get parallel threading, which makes large downloads like an initial one much faster. See docs/byoc.md.
- No sign-in: Google will block certain downloads, mostly game rips and other large chart packs.
Change it under Settings > Account > Mode.
Where are logs?
| Windows | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Synchotic\Logs |
~/Library/Logs/Synchotic |
~/.local/state/synchotic |
macOS security warning. This shouldn't happen, but if it does let me know, then right-click the app, Open, then Open again.
For developers
pip install -r requirements.txt
python sync.pyPut GOOGLE_API_KEY=... in a .env at the checkout root. Without it Google refuses the scan and no drives list. unrar is needed for .rar extraction.
python sync.py --first-run runs against a throwaway empty install, to see what a new user sees. Your credentials.json is copied in unless you pass --no-creds.
GitHub Actions builds on push to main. Locally:
./build.sh # app only
./build.sh launcher # launcher only
./build.sh mac # Synchotic.app, installed to /Applications
./build.sh dev ~/Desktop/test # both, copied to a test folderAfter build.sh dev, run the launcher from the target folder:
./synchotic-launcher-macos --dev # replace app, keep settings
./synchotic-launcher-macos --dev --clean # fresh install, wipes .dm-sync--dev uses a local app-macos.zip if present, otherwise the existing _app folder.