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Settings Overview

FindRomCover stores all settings in a single SQLite database (the database itself is not encrypted, but stored API keys are). Most settings are changed through menus and windows; there is no separate settings file to edit by hand. The database lives in the per-user data folder — see Data Storage for the exact location on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Where settings are changed

Setting group Where
Theme and accent color Theme menu
Similarity algorithm and threshold Set Similarity Algorithm and Set Similarity Threshold menus
Bracketed-text matching Ignore Bracketed Text in Matching menu
Thumbnail size Set Thumbnail Size menu
Google API key Settings > API Settings...
AI provider, model, limits, behavior Settings > AI Settings...
Supported ROM extensions Settings > Edit Supported Extensions...
MAME descriptions Settings > Use MAME Descriptions
Log window visibility Settings > Show/Hide Log Window

Settings reference

Search and matching

Setting Default Range Description
Similarity threshold 70% 10–90 Minimum filename similarity for local results
Similarity algorithm Jaro-Winkler Distance — Jaccard, Jaro-Winkler, or Levenshtein
Ignore bracketed text On — Ignore (), [], and {} contents when matching
Use MAME descriptions Off — Use MAME descriptions instead of cleaned filenames
Supported extensions 120 extensions — ROM file extensions that are scanned
Last image folder empty — Persisted when you browse for a folder or close the app, but never restored into the interface; used only for temporary-file cleanup at startup. The ROM folder is not persisted

Display

Setting Default Range Description
Base theme Dark Light, Dark Window theme
Accent color Blue 23 colors Theme accent
Thumbnail size 300 px 100–500 Preview size for Google API thumbnails and Local Files results
Max images to load 30 — Maximum Local Files results loaded per search; the Google API always requests 10 results

API and network

Setting Default Description
Google API key empty Key for the Google Custom Search API
API timeout 30 s HTTP timeout for Google API requests
Image loader retries 3 Retry attempts for image downloads
Image loader retry delay 200 ms Delay between retries
Bug report API key / URL built-in Used by the automatic bug-report pipeline

AI Vision Assist

Setting Default Range Description
AI assist enabled Off — Master switch
Provider OpenRouter 8 options Cloud, local, or custom
Base URL provider preset — API endpoint
API key empty — Stored encrypted
Model provider preset — Vision-capable model ID
Timeout 90 s 10–300 Per-request timeout
Max candidates sent 6 1–20 Images sent to the model
Image max size 512 px 128–2048 Downscale before upload
Min cover width 200 px 0–2048 Reject narrower downloads (0 disables)
Auto-save threshold 80% 0–100 Minimum confidence for auto-save
Candidate similarity 70% 0–100 Filename pre-filter for AI candidates
Auto-save Off — Save confident picks automatically
Auto-run Off — Start AI pick after each local search
Verify on save Off — AI-check images before renaming
Skip previously queried On — Use the query history

See AI Settings for the full AI reference.

Resetting settings

Goal Method
Reset everything Close FindRomCover and delete Settings.dat from the per-user data folder; defaults are recreated on the next start
Reset one area Change the values through the menus/windows; there is no per-area reset
Keep a backup Copy Settings.dat while the application is closed

Note: Deleting Settings.dat removes stored API keys. Have them ready before resetting.