How to update SMAPI to continue using Stardew Valley mods

Updating SMAPI is of vital importance for anyone that plays Stardew Valley with mods. Thankfully, it’s actually very easy to do.

Though SMAPI is wildly popular with over 3.5 million downloads on NexusMods alone, there is no official updater for the program and the installer for SMAPI is rudimentary. This makes it awkward and confusing when it comes to tracking updates and which version of SMAPI players are working with.

That said, updating SMAPI is easy to do. The process isn’t flashy, intuitive, or obvious, but players will have no difficulty getting it working again after a quick update.

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How to install and update SMAPI

• Download the latest version of the SMAPI installer
• Extract the files
• Run the installer for your OS

The process of updating SMAPI is the same as its initial installation. Just download the latest version of SMAPI from the official site and run the appropriate installer for your hardware. Do note that on Windows some anti-virus software will flag it as suspicious, but SMAPI is completely safe to use.

After opening the installer, a .BAT file will run and bring up a DOS window. This window will indicate that SMAPI is already installed. While this might suggest that nothing actually has happened, the update will still be applied to allow SMAPI to function on newer versions of Stardew Valley.

While updating SMAPI isn’t especially difficult, updating Stardew Valley mods can be a time-intensive process. The lack of Steam support for Stardew Valley modding means that many require the player to manually update them unless there are other tools set up. Once again, it isn’t actually difficult to update mods but it can be a hassle for those who have a heavily customized game.

How do I enable SMAPI on Steam?

To launch their Steam copy of Stardew Valley through SMAPI, players need to change their launch options for the game.

In order to do this, players first need to install SMAPI. From there, right-click on Stardew Valley in the Steam Library, go into Properties, and open the General tab. Players will then need to copy and paste the SMAPI file destination in between quotes with %command% after. For most players, it should look like this:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stardew Valley\StardewModdingAPI.exe” %command%

This will make it so that Stardew Valley launches through SMAPI, allowing mods to be run in the game. More information on this can be found in our complete guide to Stardew Valley modding.