Backups

FiveLaunch protects your setup in two ways. The My Setup snapshot is the baseline FiveM goes back to after every session, and the central backup store keeps a copy of anything FiveLaunch moves aside before it changes it. Keep one manual backup of your own anyway, since that’s the fastest route back to a clean state.

My Setup, your baseline

The first time you run FiveLaunch, it captures your current FiveM files into a client called My Setup. Whatever a client swaps in while you play, closing the game puts FiveM back to My Setup as it was when you captured it.

How the capture works

FiveLaunch moves your real mods, plugins, and citizen folders into the My Setup client. It’s a rename, not a copy, so it’s instant. The live folders under FiveM.app then become junctions that point back at them, which means editing FiveM.app\mods edits your My Setup snapshot. FiveLaunch copies your gta5_settings.xml and CitizenFX.ini in as the baseline settings.

Create it

1. On first run: the setup dialog offers Snapshot my setup & continue, which captures My Setup for you. You can pick Skip snapshot and do it later.

2. Later: open Settings, find Snapshot · My Setup, and click Create snapshot to capture your current FiveM files as the baseline.

Restore it

FiveLaunch restores My Setup after every session on its own. To force it, say after a launch went wrong, open Settings, find Snapshot · My Setup, and click Restore now.

Tip

Restoring My Setup re-points the live folders and copies your baseline settings back. It doesn’t create new safety backups, so your backup store doesn’t fill up with duplicates from normal sessions.

The central backup store

The first time FiveLaunch takes over a folder or file, it copies the existing contents into one central store at %APPDATA%\FiveLaunch\backups\.

No more sibling folders

Older builds left *_original copies next to your files inside FiveM.app. Current builds don’t. Snapshots only go to the central store, so you won’t find stray mods_original or plugins_original folders anymore.

Browse the store

Click History in the app footer to see every snapshot, when FiveLaunch took it, and what it holds: original folders, isolated plugin sets, and replaced settings files. From there you can delete old entries or click Open backups folder.

To bring a snapshot back, close FiveM and GTA V, open the backups folder, and copy the files you need back to their original location.

What to back up yourself

FiveLaunch can change these locations when it links or syncs:

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\FiveM\FiveM.app\mods
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\FiveM\FiveM.app\plugins
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\FiveM\FiveM.app\citizen
• %APPDATA%\CitizenFX\gta5_settings.xml
• %APPDATA%\CitizenFX\CitizenFX.ini

If FiveM lives somewhere custom, back up the same folders under your own FiveM.app path.

One-command snapshot in PowerShell

Close FiveM and GTA V, then run this. It zips those five locations into a timestamped file on your Desktop. Edit the paths if your install is elsewhere.

$stamp = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd-HHmmss"
$dest = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\FiveM-backup-$stamp.zip"

$paths = @(
  "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\FiveM\FiveM.app\mods",
  "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\FiveM\FiveM.app\plugins",
  "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\FiveM\FiveM.app\citizen",
  "$env:APPDATA\CitizenFX\gta5_settings.xml",
  "$env:APPDATA\CitizenFX\CitizenFX.ini"
)

Compress-Archive -Path $paths -DestinationPath $dest -Force
Write-Host "Created: $dest"

Back up your FiveLaunch clients

Your clients and their files live in FiveLaunch’s data directory, apart from FiveM’s folders. To keep them or move them to another PC, copy:

• %APPDATA%\FiveLaunch\clients.json: the client list and options
• %APPDATA%\FiveLaunch\clients\: each client’s files
• %APPDATA%\FiveLaunch\backups\: the snapshot store, if you want the history too

Restoring

Pick the step that matches the backup you want:

1. Close FiveM and GTA V.

2. Back to your baseline: open Settings, find Snapshot · My Setup, and click Restore now.

3. From FiveLaunch’s store: click History, then Open backups folder, and copy the snapshot back to its original location.

4. From your own zip: extract it back to the original locations.

Tip

If a launch goes wrong, Restore now under Snapshot · My Setup is the fastest fix. It puts FiveM back to your baseline in one click.