How to Add Games to Nexus Mod Manager's My Games List

If you've ever opened Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) or its successor Vortex and noticed that a game you own isn't showing up in the "My Games" section, you're not alone. This is one of the most common friction points for new modders. The fix is usually straightforward — but the exact steps depend on which version of the Nexus tool you're using, where your game is installed, and how the launcher detected it in the first place.

What "My Games" Actually Means in Nexus Tools

The My Games section in Nexus Mod Manager and Vortex is a list of games the software has detected or been told to manage. It's not a general game library like Steam — it's specifically a list of titles the mod manager is ready to handle, meaning it knows where the game's files live, where to install mods, and how to launch the game.

Games appear here either through automatic detection (the tool scans common install paths) or through manual addition, where you point the software to the game's folder yourself.

Understanding this distinction matters because the process of adding a game differs based on which method applies to your situation.

Adding Games in Vortex (The Current Nexus Tool)

Vortex is the current, actively maintained mod manager from Nexus Mods. Here's how game addition works:

Automatic Detection

When you first launch Vortex, it scans for games installed through:

• Steam
• GOG Galaxy
• Epic Games Store
• Xbox Game Pass / Microsoft Store
• EA App

If your game was installed through one of these platforms and is in a standard directory, it should appear automatically in the Games dashboard tab under "Discovered."

If it doesn't appear, the most common reasons are:

• The game is installed in a non-default folder (e.g., a secondary drive)
• The platform client isn't installed or logged in
• The game hasn't been played or fully initialized yet

Manual Game Addition in Vortex

1. Open Vortex and click the Games icon in the left sidebar
2. Look for the game under the "Discovered" section — if it's there but not active, click Manage
3. If it's not discovered, scroll down to "Not Discovered" and find the game in the list
4. Click Manage, then when prompted, browse to the game's installation folder manually
5. Once pointed to the correct directory, Vortex adds it to your active managed games

🎮 The key folder to point Vortex toward is the one containing the game's main executable (.exe file), not a subfolder or the launcher directory.

If the Game Isn't Listed at All

Some games aren't supported by Vortex yet. You can check the Nexus Mods supported games list to confirm whether a game has mod support. If it's not there, Vortex won't have a profile for it, and manual addition won't be possible through the standard interface.

Adding Games in Nexus Mod Manager (Legacy)

NMM is the older, no-longer-officially-maintained version. If you're still using it:

• NMM detects games through a registry scan at startup
• It looks for installation paths registered by Steam and a handful of other launchers
• Games installed outside Steam or in unusual directories are frequently missed

To help NMM find a game it's missing:

1. Check whether the game is installed through Steam and verify the Steam library path is on the same drive NMM expects
2. Some users manually edit the NMM config file (NexusClient.exe.config or similar) to point to alternate game paths — this is an advanced step and varies by NMM version
3. Re-installing the game through Steam in a default directory often resolves detection failures

Because NMM is legacy software, these workarounds can be unreliable, and behavior varies by version.

Key Variables That Affect Whether a Game Shows Up

When Detection Still Fails

If a game refuses to appear even after manual browsing in Vortex, a few things are worth checking:

• Verify the game files through your platform (Steam's "Verify Integrity" is the most common example) — corrupted or incomplete installs can cause detection to fail
• Make sure Vortex is up to date — game support is added through updates
• Check if there's a Vortex extension available for the game on Nexus Mods itself — some games require a community-built extension to be properly supported
• Games installed via Xbox Game Pass can be particularly tricky due to file permission restrictions Microsoft applies to those installations

🔍 The Nexus Mods forums for specific games often have pinned threads addressing detection issues for that title — especially for games with unusual install structures.

The Part That Depends on Your Setup

The core process — letting Vortex scan automatically or pointing it to a folder manually — is the same for everyone. But whether that process works smoothly, requires workarounds, or hits a wall entirely depends on factors specific to your machine: which platform you bought the game through, where it's installed, whether your Vortex version includes support for it, and how your operating system handles file permissions.

Two people trying to add the same game can have meaningfully different experiences based on nothing more than which drive they installed it on or which storefront they used.