Miyoo Mini Onion OS Master Guide

As a lazy handheld man, I know the need to have a comprehensive Miyoo Mini Onion OS guide for starters. Even for a beginner handheld retro emulator like the Miyoo Mini Plus, the developers did a wonderful job at building Onion OS as a great system, both for those who want tinkering with systems, and for those who just only want to play some nostalgic games (confession, I’m the 2nd type).

So, I’m ready to answer any questions that I can find for Onion OS in Miyoo Mini and Miyoo Mini Plus. If you follow my master guide thoroughly, I’m certain that you won’t encounter any problems with your Miyoo Mini handheld emulator.

Before you read

Global Shortcuts in Onion

While Onion devs did an awesome job of listing all the global shortcuts for the Miyoo Mini and Miyoo Mini Plus, there are so many questions about how the shortcuts work. I hope that I can answer most of the questions.

Quick summary on the global shortcuts in Onion:

Full version of global shortcuts in Onion, which is more simple to remember:

Game Switcher

Onion OS’s Game Switcher is the central user interface of Onion. Simply launch the Game Switcher by pressing the MENU button. As its name indicates, this feature helps you switch between games in your Miyoo Mini or Miyoo Mini Plus, at the current state. When you’re in Game Switcher menu, you have several options:

• Use D-Pad to switch between games. Press A to select the game you would like to play.
• Press B to exit the Game Switcher menu.
• Press X to remove a game. Removing a game doesn’t remove the current state of the game, so next time you start the game ROM, it should be exactly the same where you left the game.
• Press Y to toggle minimal view mode. On minimal view mode, there is no information like name of the current game, or some instructions on which button to press.
• Press SELECT to toggle playtime display. You need to download ActivityTracker app for this to work. I write a full guide on Miyoo Mini Onion apps.
• Press POWER on top of the Miyoo Mini Plus for full game suspension.
• Press MENU to launch previously saved game.

Package Manager

You can select/deselect the systems and apps you need in Package Manager of Onion. I recommend to read these articles for choosing the best systems and apps for your Miyoo Mini Plus:

• The best Miyoo Mini Onion apps
• What systems can Miyoo Mini Plus emulate?

Remember that you can both select and deselect systems and apps. So if you’re done with experiments, you can uninstall any systems or apps that you don’t want on your Miyoo Mini. For a lazy handheld man, I don’t really dive deep into this section, but I know many of my friends who love tinkering with a system. It’s up to your preference.

Packages are divided into three sections:

• Verified: Contains all verified systems. This is where you should start if you’re a newbie.
• Apps: Contains all the included Onion and third-party apps.
• Expert: Contains experimental/expert systems. It’s not for the faint of heart, lol.

If you need to reinstall a package, you first toggle it off and press START to reapply.

Tweaks

Tweaks section is likely to be your second Setting section. The section contains of 6 parts:

• Startup…: Setting whenever you start up the Miyoo Mini or Miyoo Mini Plus
  • Auto-resume last game: Default is on, you can turn it off to start the selected application.
  • Start application: Select between MainUI, GameSwitcher, RetroArch or AdvanceMenu. I recommend to keep it default on MainUI.
  • MainUI: Start tab: Choose the first tab for the MainUI. It’s really up to preference.
• Display (new in Onion 4.2.0): Change OSD bar size, default at 4 pixels.
• Date and time (new in Onion 4.2.0):
  • Set automatically from network: Enable to let the device set date and time automatically using Wi-Fi.
  • Wait for NTP synchronization: Your date and time will be waiting for synchronizing with NTP server. It helps with clock-based events in some games.
  • Get time zone via IP address: Again, the device uses your IP address to automatically set the time zone. Disable to select time zone manually.
  • Emulated time skip: Skipping time for 0-24 hours on startup. If you like playing Pokemon games like me, you know that you can only collect berries once every day, so let’s the feature does some magic for you.
• Low battery warning: Choose when the Miyoo Mini can warn you of low battery, default is 10%.
• Save and exit when battery < 4%: Works exactly as it sounds, so you should keep it on.
• Vibration intensity: The vibrating motor of the Miyoo Mini Plus isn’t really what I care about. I keep it at normal.

In the official Onion 4.2.0, you can set up networking right at the Tweaks section, unlike the beta version.

• WiFi: Hotspot/WPS: Allow your Miyoo Mini to connect to hotspot or WPS.
• File sharing using Samba, HTTP, SSH, Telnet or FTP: All of the available file sharing methods for your Miyoo Mini or Miyoo Mini Plus. It will replace older FTP, HTTP or SSH applications that appear in Onion 4.2.0 beta version.
• Disable services in game: Turn it on to disable all network features while gaming. It doesn’t disable the Easy Netplay feature in games.

• Menu single press vibration: Vibrates when you press MENU. Not something you would notice.
• In-game: Menu button: Change the action for how you press MENU button, from single press, long press and double press. Happens in-game.
• MainUI: Menu button: Change the action for how you press MENU button, from single press, long press and double press. Happens in MainUI.
• MainUI: X button: Apply function for pressing X in MainUI. For me, I think Search is the most important.
• MainUI: Y button: Apply function for pressing Y in MainUI.

• Show recents: It just shows a Recent tab, which is unnecessary for me.
• Show expert mode: Show Expert tab, which is not necessary if you don’t enable any “expert” systems.
• Low battery warning: Just keep it at 10%, thanks me later.
• Theme overrides: You can customize the battery percentage display, hide icon and hint labels as you wish.

• Swap triggers: Simply swap L1 with L2, R1 with R2. For my average adult hands, I swap because the Miyoo Mini Plus gives me serious hand fatigue for action games.
• Fast forward rate: You should keep it default at Unlimited to let the Miyoo Mini uses the most suitable fast forward rate.
• Adjust LCD voltage: Increase overall brightness. It is under safe threshold so don’t worry about damaging the screen. Actually, the value isn’t really accurate.
• Reset settings: Simply reset all settings to default.

• Remove OSX systems files: Previously, it is meant for macOS user to remove ._ index file from your SD card. It seems many people are addressing that this feature didn’t work.
• Generate CUE files for PSX games: Autogenerate the missing .cue file for PSX ROMs. Actually, I don’t use the Miyoo Mini Plus as a PS1 emulator, but if you use, you should know this feature.
• Favorites: Sort: It is kind of straightforward, you can sort alphabetically or by system for anything under Favorites tab.
• Favorites: Fix thumbnails and duplicates: If you add the same game twice, or another game with the same name, it will corrupt the favorites file. This feature can fix that.
• Remove apps from recents: Simply remove apps from Recent tab.

• Apply icon pack: You need to add icon pack into the Icons folder at the root of the Miyoo Mini’s SD card. Then you can select whichever icon pack you want.
• Edit … icon: You can edit console, app and expert icons. It should be belonged to every icon pack you applied.

Settings

Onion OS keeps the same settings for the Miyoo Mini and Miyoo Mini Plus. For the Miyoo Mini Plus only, you will have a tab for connecting to your Wi-Fi. There aren’t any thing you should care about in this section, but I recommend to set sleep timer to 5 minutes. It would preserve the battery life for your Miyoo Mini, especially when it is just a beater retro emulator that you just play for a short gaming session.

If you’re looking to update firmware for your Miyoo Mini, you should check the About device tab.

That’s it, if you have any other questions, please find it in my Miyoo Tutorial.