Although the itch.io website is great for finding games, supporting creators, participating in communities, creating game jams, and following developers, there are a few things that just don’t work that well from your browser.

We started building the itch.io app many months ago to address the common request of managing your itch.io library, installing, and running games right from your desktop.

Today we’re proud to announce that it’s now available simultaneously on all three platforms.

Download here: https://itch.io/app

Although we’re releasing it today, it’s in alpha state. Please bear with us if you encounter any bugs or crashes. We’ve set up an issues tracker for reporting any issues.

The itch.io website is here to stay, we’re not planning on replacing it with a desktop app. We purposefully kept the scope focused to make sure we’ve built something that adds to your itch.io experience.

Here’s what you can do:

List your library of purchased and claimed keys, along with any collections you’ve created

For any games (or applications) that support the platform you’re on, you can download and install the game

Depending how the game is packaged, it will install to an itch.io specific data directory where you can execute it directly

Because itch.io makes no requirements to the developers for packaging their project, our current process might not work with every game in your library. We hope to refine and standardize how we install and execute games, but in the meantime feel free to open an issue if there’s a game not working so we can investigate.

Open source

The entire itch.io app is open source and built on top of open source technology. The app is written in JavaScript and runs in Electron. Check out the GitHub repository. If you’re feeling up to it, you can download the latest development source code, and maybe even contribute yourself.

Looking ahead

Having a desktop app opens up a lot of opportunities for making the itch.io experience great. Automatic updates, and compressed delta updates are some of the features we’re working on and really excited about.

We hope you like what we’ve got so far and enjoy the things we have in store.

Thanks and enjoy!

P.S. You can discuss this post on the itch.io community thread: The itch.io desktop client is HERE