Skip to content

Adding mods

DDMM treats an archive, a folder, and a direct link as equally first-class ways to add a mod. All of them end up as an entry in your mod Library. Before you've added anything, the mod list itself says so: "No mods yet — Works with AyakaMods, Nexus Mods, ModWorkshop, GameBanana, GitHub and more."

Add (archive files)

Click Add (tip: "Add a mod to the library.") to open a file picker filtered to .zip, .7z, and .rar. You can select one file or several at once — DDMM installs every archive you pick. With 10 or more files (picked or dragged in), DDMM first shows the import checklist, so duplicates and mods you already have are sorted out before anything is installed.

Moving a whole collection over (another mod manager's mods, or a folder with hundreds of downloaded archives)? Use Import instead.

Add Folder

Click Add Folder (tip: "Add a mod from a plain folder.") to pick a folder that already contains a mod's files unpacked — no archive step needed. You can pick multiple folders at once. DDMM copies the folder's contents (symlinks are not followed) into its own managed mods/ directory; your original folder is left untouched.

Pick one mod's folder at a time (or several single-mod folders at once), not a folder that holds your whole collection. DDMM never copies a folder into itself, so it checks the folder you pick against its own mods/ folder (after following shortcuts/symlinks, .., and on Windows and macOS ignoring upper/lower case):

  • DDMM's own mods/ folder, or a folder that contains it (for example DDMM's data folder in a portable install): refused with an explanation, and nothing is copied. Mods in mods/ that have a manifest.json are already in your list.
  • A mod folder sitting directly in mods/ that isn't in your list yet (it has no manifest.json, for example because you unpacked it there yourself): it's added where it is. Nothing is copied or moved; DDMM just writes a manifest.json into it.
  • A folder deeper inside one of your mods (such as a mod's Options/Red folder): refused. Pick the mod's own folder instead.

If a copy fails partway (a file can't be read, the disk is full), DDMM removes the half-copied folder again.

Add URL

Click Add URL (tip: "Add a mod from a direct download link.") and paste a mod page or download link — its popup describes itself as: "Paste a mod page or download link from AyakaMods, Nexus Mods, ModWorkshop, GameBanana, GitHub, or any direct download link."

A direct link (serving the archive file itself over https://) downloads and installs immediately, with a 2 GiB size cap, and a check that what comes back is actually a zip/7z/rar archive (by file signature, not just the URL's extension). A mod page on a site that requires being logged in (AyakaMods, Nexus Mods) skips the direct download attempt entirely and goes straight to a browser handoff; a page on another site that turns out not to serve an archive directly gets offered the same handoff instead of just failing. See Mod sites for exactly how that's decided and how the handoff works.

If a direct download attempt fails outright and no handoff is offered/accepted, you see:

Adding mod from URL failed! — Use a direct download link, or download the file and add it manually.

Drag & drop

Drag one or more archive files or folders onto the DDMM window (a "Drop archives or folders to add" overlay appears while dragging) and drop them — DDMM installs each one, the same as picking them through Add / Add Folder.

What happens after

Every install goes through the same steps:

  1. A folder for the mod is created under mods/, named after the archive's filename (without its extension) or the source folder's name.
  2. If the archive/folder contains a manifest.json, that becomes the mod's manifest (see Manifest reference for the formats DDMM understands). The manifest.json is also found when the mod's folder was zipped instead of its contents (My Mod/manifest.json): that folder is then installed as the mod. See Zipping the folder or its contents.
  3. If there's no manifest.json, DDMM generates a minimal one automatically: a random ID, the archive/folder name as the mod's name, an empty description — and, for this auto-generated manifest only, DDMM also scans the mod's files to fill in Options if needed; see Archives without a manifest.json below. The name is cleaned up first: a Nexus Mods download such as EAGLE-2-1065-V1-1-1752787902.zip is named EAGLE-2 (the mod id, version and upload time are dropped), and a browser's duplicate-download counter such as (1) is removed. A name from a manifest.json is always used as it is.
  4. If the file (or folder) name is a Nexus Mods download name, DDMM also records the mod's Nexus page and version from it, so Check for updates works for the mod. This is read from the name only; nothing is looked up online. A mod installed from a link (Add from URL, the browser extension, one-click install) keeps the source of that link instead.
  5. The mod is added to your Library, from where you can drag or insert it into a profile. If DDMM couldn't find any Helldivers 2 patch files anywhere in it, you'll see a non-fatal warning: "no Helldivers 2 patch files found in this archive" — the mod is still added, it just won't do anything when deployed.

A mod with the same ID is already installed

Every mod has an ID (the Guid in its manifest.json), and two installed mods can't share one. When a file you add has the ID of a mod that's already installed, DDMM never overwrites it silently. It asks first:

  • Same name (most likely another version of the same mod): "Cool Mod" (version 1.0) is already installed. Replace it with this file ("Cool Mod", version 1.2)? The versions are shown when DDMM knows them (from where the mod was installed from, or from a Nexus Mods download name).
  • Different names: DDMM says that these may be two different mods: some authors copy one mod's manifest.json into their next mod, so both claim the same ID. Replace then removes the installed mod and puts the new one in its place.

Cancel is the default (Enter cancels) and leaves everything as it is: nothing is installed, and the installed mod isn't touched. If you don't answer within 10 minutes, DDMM cancels by itself. For an install from the browser extension it waits at most 2 minutes, and less when the extension would otherwise stop waiting first (the extension gives up on an install after 5 minutes); with too little time left it doesn't ask, and the install fails as already installed. Closing or reloading the Mods page also cancels an open question.

Replace swaps the new file in the same way an update does:

  • the file is unpacked and checked completely first; if anything goes wrong, the installed mod stays as it was;
  • the mod keeps its ID and its folder in DDMM's mod storage (the folder isn't renamed after the new file), so it keeps its place in every profile and whether it's on. Its option choices stay as they were if they still fit the new manifest.json, otherwise they're reset to the defaults;
  • where the mod came from is recorded for the new file, as for a new install: from a Nexus Mods download name, or from the link you installed it from (Add URL, the browser extension). What the last update check said about the replaced mod is cleared;
  • if the mod is on in your active profile, DDMM redeploys it (or asks to) just like after an update; see After updating: redeploy. An install from the browser extension instead does what After a Browser Install says (library only, add to the active profile, or add and deploy), as every extension install does.

The question is asked for Add (one file or several), drag and drop, Add URL, ddmm:// links, the browser handoff and the browser extension. Some cases don't ask:

  • Many files at once (10 or more added or dropped) go through the import checklist, which marks a file whose mod is already installed (Already in DDMM, Another version is in DDMM) and leaves it unticked; it doesn't offer to replace. To replace that mod, add the file on its own.
  • Folders (Add Folder) and archives without a manifest.json have no ID to compare. A folder with a manifest.json whose ID is already installed is refused; an archive or folder without one is refused when it would get the folder of a mod already in the list. Remove the installed mod first, or use Update on it.

If the question can't be shown (for example, the browser extension sends an install while DDMM's Mods page isn't open), the file is refused as already installed, and the message says how to replace the mod.

Archives without a manifest.json

For a mod installed with no manifest.json of its own (an auto-generated manifest — an author-supplied manifest is never touched this way), DDMM scans the installed files to work out where its Helldivers 2 patch files (<16 hex chars>.patch_N, plus .gpu_resources/.stream counterparts) actually live:

  • Patch files directly at the mod's root — the common case — deploy as-is, no options.
  • No patch files at the root, but one or more directories (up to 4 levels deep) directly contain some — each such directory becomes an entry in a Legacy-style Options list (the same single-choice dropdown described in Mod options & variants), naturally sorted (so "Option 2" sorts before "Option 10") and defaulting to the first one. This covers both a single wrapper folder (e.g. everything nested one level down under a folder named after the mod) and several variant folders (e.g. Red/, Blue/) the same way — pick the one you want from the dropdown before deploying.
  • No patch files found anywhere in the first 4 levels — the mod installs anyway, with the warning shown above, rather than silently doing nothing.

A directory that qualifies as an option isn't searched any further inside itself — whatever's in it is that option's whole file tree, not a place to look for more nested variants.

Batch adds and partial failures

When you add several archives, folders, or a mix of paths at once, each one is installed independently: one bad archive doesn't stop the rest from installing. You'll see a result popup listing which succeeded and which failed, with the error message for each failure.