Cocoon Shell 2.0 Is Here celebration

After over a month of work, we’re thrilled to release Cocoon Shell 2.0 - the biggest update in Cocoon’s history. This isn’t just an update, It’s a complete reimagining of how your game library looks, sounds, and feels. Rewritten. From scratch.

Let’s dive into everything that’s new.

Download Beta 2.0

music_note Background Music & Sound Effects

Cocoon now has a full audio system, built with love by @Anti.

Background Music

Cocoon finally has a soundtrack. The default mode is Time, which plays different music depending on the time of day - morning, afternoon, evening, and night each get their own vibe. You can customise this with your own time-based playlist, or switch to Playlist mode where you upload your own tracks and play them in order or shuffled.

Find it under Settings → General → Sound Settings.

Background music settings screen

New Sound Effects

Every interaction has been given a fresh set of sounds. Navigation, selecting, opening folders, reordering games, opening the friend list, swapping screens, and more. This transforms Cocoon into a whole new experience

Just like music, all sounds are fully customisable in the same Sound Settings menu.

palette Themes

Cocoon now supports full themes that you can create, share, and mix-and-match.

A theme can include:

Colours & accents
Sound effects
Background music
Custom icon overlays
Smart folder icons and hero images
…and more coming soon

Mix & Match

With our comprehensive, modular themeing system, you can use any parts of any theme and combine them into your own, truly allowing you to make Cocoon feel like YOUR launcher.

With just one tap, bundle your assets into a shareable folder, ready to be imported at any time.

Apply Modes

Replace - permanently copies all theme assets into your setup
Append - references the theme at runtime, keeping things lightweight

Theme picker screen

bug_report Meet Grub - The Setup Wizard

First-time setup just got a lot more fun. Grub, our mascot, now guides you through an interactive setup wizard complete with custom music, dialog bubbles, and a progress bar. It walks you through everything you need to get up and running.

Grub the mascot guiding the setup wizard

smartphone Single-Screen Layout

Cocoon was originally built for dual-screen handhelds, but not everyone has two screens. Well that’s totally fine now. The new single-screen layout is fully optimised for standard Android devices.

Huge thanks to @Rdust and @lnkd for concepting and designing the layout, capturing the Cocoon style beautifully on a single display.

Single-screen layout preview

timer Better Game Tracking

Cocoon now uses Android’s usage stats to properly detect whether a game is running - even if it’s in the background. This powers two things:

Discord Rich Presence - more stable and accurate status updates
Playtime Tracking - see how long you’ve played each game (a Play Log activity is coming soon for visualising and editing this)

sports_esports Games & Platforms

Smarter Setup

Only platforms found during first-time setup are included in your library now. Want to add a platform later? Head to Settings → Library & Data → Add (Y), pick your platform, and Cocoon will try to find the folder automatically.

Quality of Life

Cocoon auto-selects only emulators that are actually installed on your device
Platform names have been cleaned up (thanks @NaviVani)
Added PICO-8 support (also thanks @NaviVani)
ROM importing now supports all accepted file types, not just the default player’s
Only installed emulators show up in the player list - no more confusion
App shortcuts are fixed and work much better
Improved support for .m3u, .chd, .iso, and .cue files

search Scraping Overhaul

Scraping has been completely reworked to give you more control.

ScreenScraper is now available as an art source alongside SteamGridDB
Custom priority order - choose which sources come first, disable ones you don’t want
Parallel scraping - SteamGridDB and ScreenScraper now run at the same time for faster results
Granular control - scrape artwork only, metadata only, or both
Flexible scope - scrape missing data, all games, or just a specific platform
Per-game rescraping - rescrape individual games from their edit menu, taking the display name into account
Media picker - when editing a game or folder, choose art from SteamGridDB, ScreenScraper, or upload your own

The game grid has been rebuilt from the ground up.

Animations

Games animate smoothly to their new positions when you zoom in/out or swap them around
Context menus and dialogs now morph into each other with slick transitions instead of separate popups (and animation speed is configurable)

Lazy Loading

The grid now uses a custom lazy-loading system - only items visible on screen are rendered, which means better performance with large libraries.

Empty Spaces & Edit Mode

The grid now supports empty spaces that appear dynamically as your library grows - use them to lay out your grid exactly how you want
Edit Mode lets you reorder games, apps, and folders using just your controller. Press A/Y on an empty slot and select “Edit Grid” to get started (or drag & drop on touchscreen)
Cocoon Settings and Add Folder are now accessed from the empty slot context menu.

folder Folders

Nested folders - organise with sub-folders for as many levels as you need
Fullscreen mode - folders can now open as full-screen menus instead of floating dialogs
Navigation position and zoom levels are saved and restored when you reopen a folder
New smart folder type: Favourites

fullscreen Hero Display

Three display modes for game hero art: Fullscreen, Vignette, and None. You can also adjust hero logo scale and vignette size from a dedicated Hero Settings screen.

brush Custom Icon Overlays

Set up custom icons for specific platforms using a mask and overlay system. This lets you add platform-specific badges or styles to your game icons - check out what the community has already done with these, the results are stunning.

apps App Drawer & Dock

The app drawer now has an A–Z handle for quick scrolling
Previously hidden apps (like Files) now show up properly
Dock context menu - right-click or long-press dock items for launch, clear, and screen selection options
General polish and improvements throughout

auto_awesome More Highlights

Accent theme system - toggle accent colours on selected items, icon backgrounds, and gradient/glow effects independently
App icon customisation - adjust icon roundness, scale, and hover scale with a live preview
Live wallpaper passthrough - use your Android system live wallpaper as the Cocoon background
Video & wallpaper system improvements
Game info animations - smooth transitions that follow your navigation direction, no more flickering
Startup delay - Cocoon now waits a few seconds after a device restart to let the system settle
Configurable animation speed - speed up or slow down all animations globally
Discord Rich Presence now shows your most recently scraped game icon

Thank You

Cocoon 2.0 wouldn’t exist without the incredible community that’s been testing, reporting bugs, and sharing ideas. Special shoutouts to @Anti for the audio system, @Rdust and @lnkd for single-screen design, and @NaviVani for platform cleanup.

Join the Discord to share your setups, themes, and feedback. And if you’d like to support development, check out our Ko-Fi.