Every system.
One library.

No. GameBox is a library and a player — it finds, organises and plays games you already have. It contains no ROMs or disc images and links to none, apart from 26 Vectrex games that their owner lets people share free of charge. The only BIOS-type files inside it are those of a few systems whose owners allow them to be passed on: Amstrad's ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC ROMs, the MSX's free C-BIOS and the Vectrex's system ROM.

Twenty other systems use BIOS files from the real machine. Those you supply yourself, and GameBox never downloads them. Supplying the games, legally, is up to you.

Yes — free, with no account, no ads and no paid tier. If you want to support it there's a Patreon and a Buy Me a Coffee, but nothing in the app is behind either.

A Mac with macOS 15.2 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel. For the fifty built-in systems that's all, apart from BIOS files for the twenty that use them. For other systems you need an emulator — File ▸ Install Emulators fetches several. Storage depends entirely on your collection: artwork and video previews add up quickly, so a fast external SSD is worth it for the media folder.

Twenty of the fifty built-in systems use files from the real machine: the Sega Mega-CD, PC Engine CD-ROM², PlayStation, Neo Geo, Atari 5200, Atari 400/800, Intellivision, ColecoVision, Philips CD-i, Commodore PET, VIC-20, 64 and Plus/4, the four Amigas (500, 1200, CD32 and CDTV), the Color Computer, the Dragon 32 and the Sharp X68000. The other thirty need nothing.

Put your files in one folder and choose it in Settings ▸ BIOS. The tab lists every file GameBox can use, its checksum and whether it was found. Files are recognised by their contents, wherever they sit in that folder and whatever they're called.

GameBox is a universal app: one download runs natively on Apple silicon and on Intel Macs, macOS 15.2 or later. Three of the emulators it can start for other systems — shadPS4, XeniOS and Astris — need Apple silicon.

Each was written or adapted for GameBox and measured against a reference emulator, on whole game libraries rather than a handful of favourites. In the libraries it was tried on: all 41 Capcom CPS-2 games play, with pictures that match MAME's frame for frame; 211 of 212 Nintendo 64 games reach their intros or menus; all 753 Amstrad CPC discs start; 140 of 141 Neo Geo sets play.

Some games don't work yet — 11 of the 28 Philips CD-i discs, for example, need a video cartridge that GameBox doesn't emulate. If one of yours doesn't play, tell us, and Run With in the right-click menu can try another emulator for that game.

No. GameBox uses the same folder layout as EmulationStation, so point it at your existing ROM and media directories and the two coexist on one copy. File ▸ Read in ES-DE Meta Data imports your gamelist.xml metadata across.

Not to scrape, but it helps. Without one you share a small anonymous daily quota; a free account raises it considerably. Enter it in Settings ▸ Scrapers. Steam and Apple Arcade games don't use ScreenScraper at all — they come from Steam's and Apple's own catalogues.

Yes — controllers are detected automatically, wireless included. In the library the D-pad moves the selection, A launches, B clears and Y toggles a favourite; the keyboard works too. In a built-in game every button of every system can be set in Settings ▸ Controller, for the keyboard and for a controller, and holding Start and Select opens the game menu.

Yes. Sign in to retroachievements.org in Settings ▸ Achievements and GameBox earns them as you play in nineteen of its built-in systems. Your password goes to RetroAchievements once, to be swapped for a token that GameBox keeps in your Keychain; GameBox doesn't keep the password.