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Most of the time, nothing gets installed. That is the answer people are looking for when they ask how to install games on Dolphin emulator, and it is the reason they cannot find the menu. A disc image is not installed. You put it in a folder, tell Dolphin where the folder is, and double click.
There are two real exceptions, and this post covers those too, because WiiWare titles and texture packs do get installed, in the ordinary sense of the word, through menu items that most guides never mention.
Scope note: written against Dolphin 2606a, covering Windows, macOS and Android, for GameCube and Wii games dumped from discs you own. It names no game sources.
The three things people mean by install
Disc images, which is most of what you will run. GameCube and Wii games live as files on your drive and Dolphin reads them in place.
WAD files, which hold WiiWare and Virtual Console titles. These really do install, into Dolphin's emulated Wii storage, and then appear in the emulated Wii System Menu.
Texture packs and mods, which install into a specific folder structure and do nothing at all if the folder name is wrong by one character.
Knowing which of the three you are holding saves an hour of looking for the wrong button.
Before anything: the emulator and the file
Get Dolphin from dolphin-emu.org and nowhere else. Rebuilt Dolphin packages on APK mirrors and download portals are a known malware vector, and the project publishes builds for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android itself. The stable release as I write this is 2606a from June 2026.
Windows needs the 64 bit Visual C++ redistributable for Visual Studio 2022 installed or Dolphin will not launch. macOS needs Big Sur 11 or later and runs natively on Apple Silicon. Android needs a 64 bit device on Android 5.0 or later.
Dolphin ships no games and downloads none. The supported route is dumping the discs you own, documented in the project's official ripping games guide, which uses a Wii or a Wii U in Wii mode with the Homebrew Channel, plus CleanRip and an SD card or USB drive. GameCube discs come to 1.36 GB. Wii discs run to 4.7 GB single layer and 8.5 GB dual layer.
Dolphin reads ISO, GCM, RVZ, WIA, WBFS, CISO and GCZ for discs, WAD for WiiWare and Virtual Console, and ELF and DOL for homebrew.
Gotcha, and it costs more time than anything else here: an archive is not a disc image. A .zip, .7z or .rar file will never appear in the game list regardless of your path settings. Extract first. NKit files also will not run.
Step 1: a folder you will not move
Make something permanent. D:\Games\Dolphin or ~/Games/Dolphin is fine. Keep GameCube and Wii titles in subfolders if you like tidy libraries, or dump everything flat if you do not care.
Avoid Downloads, and avoid leaving files on the SD card you dumped to. Dolphin stores the path rather than the file, so a folder you rename in March empties your library in March.
Step 2: convert to RVZ if storage matters
RVZ is Dolphin's own compressed format and it reads at full speed, so there is no performance argument against it. Wii discs padded with junk data shrink dramatically.
Right click any game already in your list, choose Convert File, set the format to RVZ, pick a destination. Delete the original afterwards if you want the space back. Skip this step entirely if you have the storage.
Step 3: how to install games on Dolphin emulator on desktop
Open Dolphin. Click Config, then the Paths tab, then Add. Select your games folder and confirm.
Turn Search Subfolders on if your library uses per game folders. Leave it off for a flat directory, since a recursive scan across a large drive is slow for nothing.
Close the config window and the list should populate. If it stays empty, use Refresh Game List from the View menu or press F5.
The graphics baseline is the same everywhere except one setting. Set the backend to Vulkan on Windows, Linux and Android, or Metal on macOS. Metal talks to the GPU directly on a Mac while Vulkan goes through a translation layer, so Metal is always the right pick there. Direct3D 12 is a fine alternative on Windows if a driver misbehaves. Set Internal Resolution to 2x for a 1080p display or 3x for 1440p.
On macOS the first launch is blocked by Gatekeeper because the build is not from the App Store. Clear it in System Settings under Privacy and Security.
Step 4: how to install games on Dolphin emulator on Android
Android is the one platform where the desktop instructions do not transfer, and scoped storage is why. You cannot type a path or browse to one from inside the app.
Tap the add button on the main screen. Android's own folder picker opens. Select your games folder and grant access. The app now has permission to read that folder and only that folder.
If the list comes up empty on Android, the permission failed. The file is almost never the problem at this stage.
Set the backend to Vulkan and start at 1x internal resolution. Raise it after you have played through a level at full speed, not before. Phone GPUs handle resolution scaling less gracefully than desktop ones, and demanding Wii titles push the CPU side hard on top of that.
Step 5: verify the dump
Right click a game, open Properties, use the Verify tab. Dolphin hashes the file and checks it against known good dumps.
Skipping this is the most expensive shortcut on the list. A bad dump does not fail at launch. It boots, runs for six hours, and hangs at one cutscene that no setting will fix.
Installing WAD files, which actually install
WiiWare and Virtual Console titles come as WAD files and these are the exception to everything above. Open Tools and choose Install WAD. Dolphin writes the title into its emulated Wii storage.
From there, launch the emulated Wii System Menu from the Tools menu and the title sits on the channel grid the way it did on hardware. Uninstalling works the same way through the Tools menu.
Two things worth knowing. The emulated storage lives in Dolphin's user folder, so it survives updates but not a fresh profile. And a WAD you install is stored, unlike a disc image, so the file on your drive can be moved afterwards without breaking anything.
Installing texture packs
Texture packs go in a folder named for the game ID, inside Load/Textures in Dolphin's user folder. On Windows that user folder defaults to %AppData%\Dolphin Emulator.
Find the game ID by right clicking the game and opening Properties. The pack folder name has to match it exactly. Then enable Load Custom Textures in Graphics, Advanced. Prefetch Custom Textures loads the whole pack into memory up front, which removes hitching at the cost of RAM.
A pack that does nothing is nearly always a folder name mismatch or a pack nested one level too deep.
Troubleshooting
The game list is empty. The file is still in an archive, the path points somewhere else, Search Subfolders is off while the game sits one level down, or on Android the folder permission was never granted.
The title cannot be booted. Bad dump in almost every case. Run Verify, then re dump.
Black screen with sound. Change the graphics backend and try again. Vulkan and Direct3D 12 behave differently on older drivers.
Stutter the first time a new effect appears, smooth afterwards. Shader compilation. In Graphics, Advanced, set Shader Compilation to Hybrid Ubershaders.
Saves vanished after an update. Dolphin's user folder location changed across older versions. Creating a file named portable next to the executable forces everything to stay local instead.
FAQ
Do I need a BIOS to install games on Dolphin emulator? No. Dolphin needs no Wii BIOS. A GameCube IPL file is optional and only adds the original boot animation.
Which file format should I keep games in? RVZ when storage is tight, ISO when it is not. Both read at full speed.
How do I install games on Dolphin emulator without a PC? Use the official Android build. The steps match the desktop ones apart from folder access, which goes through the Android system picker.
Can I install a game to Dolphin the way I install an app? Only WAD titles. Disc images stay where they are and Dolphin reads them from your folder.
Why does my texture pack do nothing? The folder name does not match the game ID, or Load Custom Textures is off.
Is Dolphin legal? The emulator is. Downloading game images you do not own is not. Dumping your own discs is the workflow the project documents.
Version note
Written September 2026 against Dolphin 2606a. Menu names shift slightly between releases, so check the neighbouring tab if a setting is not where this post puts it. Paths, Verify and Install WAD have been stable for years. More emulator writing lives on the modfuze blog.
That is the whole of how to install games on Dolphin emulator. One folder, one path setting, a verify pass, and the two menu items that handle the cases where installing is the literal right word.