Export as pack without dependencies

v.for.vandal · December 31, 2024, 11:03am

Godot Version

4.3

Question

Hi! I am trying to make my game mod-friendly. I have tried out-of-tree approach for building a simple mod (it was really inconvenient) and I am now trying in-tree approach, where mod folder is part of game tree.
For that to work, I need to be able to export as pack only this mod folder - and nothing outside of it. However, the only available option I see in Export menu is to export with dependencies and indeed, as advertised, there are a lot of additional files.
There only working option so far is to add every other folder to “Filters to exclude files/folders from project” - but this is very error prone. I need to have one export preset for every mod, and every time I add some folder to root, I need to go and manually add new this folter to each and every preset.

Is there some better way to develop mods and mod-friendly games?

unit327 · October 14, 2025, 12:36am

There is an open proposal and a pull request to add this functionality, but in the meantime there is a workaround described here:

github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals

Add an export option to explicitly include selected resources without dependencies

opened 12:06AM - 26 Dec 22 UTC

SysError99

topic:editor topic:export

### Describe the project you are working on Many of instant games that need to …be shipped into web browser platforms. ### Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project Godot game files are extremely heavy for web platforms, and only few cases that make Godot games acceptable to be put on browser, such as Itch.io, which most of players will have patience to wait for the game to load. Since I use Godot on instant games myself, letting the game to load all at once isn't a preferable option. My current workflow has automated scripts that will export main game files along with separated PCK files, then those files will be downloaded on-demand, which helps saving lots of space and time to load. However, as I discovered that Godot export options don't have any of resource options to be chosen that explicitly omit dependencies that already exist in main game files. It's not currently a problem if main game files don't have many of heavy dependencies, but it will definitely be a problem if Godot will be used in larger web browser projects. ### Describe the feature / enhancement and how it helps to overcome the problem or limitation Add an option that makes Godot explicitly omit file dependencies. ![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17522480/209484966-72799142-85af-4362-8f91-e5f1f1f7015b.png) ### Describe how your proposal will work, with code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, and/or diagrams In many cases that main game files already have all of files required for dependents to work properly. This will help reducing PCK/ZIP file size in cases that dependencies aren't needed to be updated. ### If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script? I can make do with excluding files, directory options at the bottom of the window, but as I have many of PCK templates needed to be exported, it become cumbersome and tedious to make sure that all PCK files have omitted unnecessary files/directories. ### Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library? This is direct change in the game engine's build process.

Use export with “export all resources in the project except the resources checked below” and everything you don’t want in the pck.