Saving and Importing Projects in MakeCode Arcade

Do you remember the days before you could log in to MakeCode, when your projects were tied to the cache of a single computer? So glad those days are gone!

You might not have realized, but MakeCode Arcade has always provided multiple ways to save your work. This might not seem as important now that Arcade automatically saves to the cloud for logged-in users — but trust me, there are times that a manual back-ups can save your bacon!

Let’s investigate the best methods of making safety copies of your projects.

The Save Button

It might seem obvious, but some don’t realize that there’s a save button right in the main window.

Despite the location, that floppy disk icon isn’t there to save changes to the name of your project, it’s there to package your project into a png file that can be easily re-imported at another time.

To re-import your file, just drag the png into the editor and MakeCode will do the rest!

The Download Button

The biggest call to action is the “Download” button.

Many people have tried to save their games to their computers, only to hit “Download” and be faced with a list of funny looking hardware. What’s the deal?

The original purpose of the “Download” button was to allow you to save a copy of your program onto a handheld game console, like the Meowbit or the GameGo — but these files are handy even if you don’t have any of those gadgets.

Choose any of the options, and you’ll be prompted to save a new file (likely a .uf2) somewhere on your machine. This file can be re-imported the same way as the png mentioned above!

Save to Github Button

Perhaps the most mysterious button in the bottom row is the circle in the square with the cat icon. That’s the button you use to save your project to Github.

Creating a Github account is simple. Just click “Sign in” and choose “Create an account.”

Github will walk you through the sign up process from there.

The next time you click the Github icon from MakeCode, you’ll reach a screen that lets you upload your project to a personal repository (or pull changes from the repository into MakeCode.)

For more info on using a Github repository with MakeCode, watch this handy video:

What’s your favorite way of saving your projects in MakeCode Arcade?