An Android phone, an iPhone or an iPad runs most of the games on this site: DOS games, old computers, consoles and phone games. You need the right app, the game file, and for many games a controller or a keyboard.
Our guides for each machine are written for a computer. This page tells you which app to use on a phone or tablet, then sends you to the guide of your machine for the rest. The Play in browser button on DOS games has no touch controls and no on-screen keyboard, so it is made for a computer.
Before you start
Three things make old games much easier on a phone: an app that unpacks archives, a place for your games, and a controller. Sort them out once, and every app below gets simpler.
- Archives. Most of our downloads are
.zipfiles. On Android, Files by Google unpacks them: tap the file, then Extract. It handles.ziponly, so for.7zand.rarinstall ZArchiver. On an iPhone or iPad, tap a.zipin the Files app and it becomes a folder. - A controller. Xbox and PlayStation controllers pair over Bluetooth with Android and with iPhones and iPads, like any Bluetooth device. Apple lists the ones it supports for PlayStation and Xbox. A Bluetooth keyboard helps a lot with computer games.
- A games folder. Keep your games in one folder. Most apps ask you to pick a folder once, then list what is in it.
RetroArch: one app for most machines
RetroArch runs most of the old computers and consoles on this site in one app, on Android and on iPhone and iPad. Each machine is a "core" inside it. It is free, and our page about multi-system emulators explains how it works.
On Android, get RetroArch from its website or from F-Droid, not from Google Play. Google does not let an app download cores from outside its store, so the Play versions carry a limited set: the plain one has no core downloader at all, and RetroArch Plus offers up to 127 cores. The website version downloads all of them, DOS and the Amiga included.
To install the website version, allow your browser to install unknown apps when Android asks. If Play Protect warns you, tap "Install anyway". The official Android guide shows each step.
On an iPhone or iPad, RetroArch is free on the App Store. Apple has allowed game emulators there since 2024. The cores come with the app, and you cannot add others: DOS, Amiga, Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, PC-98, X68000, arcade games and many consoles are there. MAME and Mini vMac are not.
Apple does not let apps speed up their emulation the way they can on Android, so the heaviest machines run slower on an iPhone. Copy your games with the Files app, into On My iPhone > RetroArch. The official iOS guide has the details.
DOS games
DOS games expect a keyboard, and often a mouse, which a phone does not have. Pick an app that draws them on the screen, or use a controller or a Bluetooth keyboard.
- DOSBox Pure, the DOS core of RetroArch, on Android and iOS. It opens a game straight from its
.zip, with nothing to unpack. The screen works as a touchpad: drag to move the mouse, tap to click, tap with two fingers for a right click. With a controller, press the left stick to show a keyboard on the screen. It lives on Codeberg. - Magic DOSBox (Android, paid) is built for touch: you place buttons and keys on the screen for each game. A free version runs one game.
- iDOS 3 (iPhone and iPad, paid) has a PC keyboard on the screen, a virtual gamepad, and the screen as a trackpad. It also takes a Bluetooth keyboard, mouse and controller.
With a controller, DOSBox Pure is the free choice on both systems. Without one, Magic DOSBox or iDOS 3 are easier. Once the game runs, our DOS guide helps with speed, sound and CD images.
Windows games
On Android, Winlator runs Windows 95 to XP games, with no copy of Windows to install. On an iPhone or iPad there is no practical way.
Winlator puts Wine, which runs Windows programs, together with Box64, which turns PC code into the code of a phone. It is free, and you install it from the Releases page on GitHub: it is not on Google Play. How well a game runs depends a lot on the phone.
Its own notes give three tips that suit old games. If a game does not open, add MESA_EXTENSION_MAX_YEAR=2003 to its settings. Use "Force Fullscreen" for games in a low resolution. If the sound crackles, raise the audio latency. Our Windows guide and our page about Wine help with the rest.
On an iPhone or iPad, UTM SE on the App Store emulates a whole PC, but Apple's rules make it slow: its own guide suggests it for DOS and small systems, not for Windows.
Point-and-click adventures: ScummVM
Many adventure games of LucasArts, Sierra and others run better in ScummVM than in an emulator. It replaces the game's own program, and it is built for touch screens.
ScummVM is free on Google Play and on the App Store, and the iPhone version comes with two demos to try. Add the folder of your game, and ScummVM finds it. Its guides for Android and iOS explain the touch gestures: on an iPhone, pinch to show the keyboard. Check that your game is on the list of supported games first.
Amiga, Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum and other computers
RetroArch is the practical choice for the old home computers, on Android and on iPhone and iPad. Its cores are the same emulators our guides recommend on a computer.
The Amiga core is PUAE, the Commodore 64 one is VICE, the MSX one is blueMSX, and the ZX Spectrum one is Fuse. Each machine still needs what our guide for it says, such as the Kickstart ROM of the Amiga: see the guides for the Amiga, the Commodore 64, MSX and the ZX Spectrum.
A few machines also have an app of their own. On Android, their guides name fMSX for the MSX, Speccy for the Spectrum and Colleen for the Atari 8-bit computers. On iPhone and iPad, Amigo is a free Amiga emulator under active work.
Classic Mac games
Infinite Mac runs the old Macs in a web browser, and a phone or tablet is no exception. On Android, Mini vMac is an app for the black and white Macs.
Open Infinite Mac in Safari or Chrome, not in the browser of another app, which may run out of memory. On a touch screen, it offers a Mac keyboard on the screen. Mini vMac for Android emulates a Mac Plus and needs a ROM file, as our Mac guide explains.
Consoles
For consoles, simpler apps than RetroArch exist. They show your games as a list with their covers, and need almost no setting up.
- Lemuroid (Android, free, no ads): Atari 2600, 7800 and Lynx, Nintendo and SEGA consoles, PlayStation, PC Engine, Neo Geo Pocket, WonderSwan, and arcade games. On Google Play and F-Droid.
- Delta (iPhone and iPad, free): the Nintendo consoles and handhelds, from the NES to the DS.
- Provenance (iPhone and iPad, free): many consoles, and a few computers.
Our guide for each console names the core or the emulator to use, and the BIOS file it needs, if any.
Old phone and PDA games
Games made for old phones and PDAs feel at home on a touch screen. Several of our guides already name an app for them.
- Java phone games: J2ME Loader on Android, with a phone keypad on the screen, and CoffeeCat on iPhone and iPad, free. Java game apps tend to be removed from the App Store soon after they appear, so CoffeeCat may not stay. JarlyME, an early test version you install through Apple's TestFlight, is the other choice, and our J2ME guide names a third, through a Palm emulator.
- Symbian and N-Gage: EKA2L1, free on Android, and on the App Store for iPhone and iPad since October 2026, still very new there. See our Symbian guide.
- Palm OS: CloudpilotEmu, in a browser and as an iPhone app. See our Palm OS guide.
- Windows Mobile: PocketHLE. See our Windows Mobile guide.
I need help!
We do not provide support for running abandonware games. Each app has its own guide, linked above, and RetroArch has a forum and a Discord server.
Tell them which game, which app, and which phone or tablet: you will get an answer much faster. Have fun!
Checked in October 2026 against each app's own documentation, its store page and, where it exists, its source code. These guides were drafted with the help of an AI assistant and checked by hand before publishing. If something here is out of date, tell us.