IS MY SWITCH PATCHED

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Your Switch is not patched

It shipped with the original bootROM — RCM and custom firmware work on it.

What you can do

Custom firmware (CFW) — Atmosphere is the standard choice — turns on homebrew apps, emulators, save management, system theming, and the ability to back up games you own. None of that requires modifying the console physically; it all runs from a microSD card.

Backups are for games you legally own. Downloading games you don't own is piracy, it's illegal, and it harms the people who make the games you're about to go play with CFW.

What you'll need

  • An RCM jig (or a jig-shaped paperclip trick, but a real jig is a couple of dollars and far less fiddly)
  • A USB-C cable to connect the Switch to a PC or phone for payload injection
  • A microSD card — see our microSD card comparison if you don't already have one

USB-C data cable, if you need one.

Confirm with an RCM jig

If your result was possibly patched, this is the section for you: the only way to know for sure is to try it. Put the console in RCM mode with the jig, connect it to a PC running a payload injector (TegraRcmGUI on Windows is the common one), and send a known-good payload like Hekate. If it boots into Hekate, you're not patched. If the screen stays black and the console just charges normally, it's patched — no harm done either way, the attempt itself can't damage the console.

Setting it up

  1. Format the microSD card to FAT32 if it's larger than 64GB.
  2. Download Atmosphere and Hekate, and follow a current community guide (below) for the file layout.
  3. Boot into RCM and inject the Hekate payload from your PC.
  4. From Hekate, launch into Atmosphere.

Before you go further than a first boot:

  • Make a NAND backup before changing anything else — it's your way back if something goes wrong.
  • Set up an emuMMC (a virtual second system) so your original NAND stays untouched.
  • Keep the console offline while running CFW, or use Atmosphere's DNS blocking — signing in online risks a ban.
  • Never accept a system update from CFW; wait for the CFW project to confirm support first.

Useful resources