Guide: PlayStation Vita
Updated: March 16, 2026
Last updated: 31JUL2024 (see Changelog for details)
This tutorial will show you how to safely and permanently jailbreak/mod your device so that you can run RetroArch or other emulators, plus load backups of your PS Vita, PSP, and PS1 games. Note this will work on any firmware version of PS Vita, up to and including 3.74.
This guide is intended for the PS Vita 1000 and PS Vita 2000 models. The PS TV setup is mostly the same, but there are some slight differences in the process; because I’ve never used a PS TV, I would recommend looking at the VitaHacks guide. This tutorial is written for Windows users, it is possible to jailbreak a Vita using Mac/Linux by following these instructions.
Note that each of these tutorials are written in a specific order. For example, you will need VitaShell installed to run certain tools, and so those instructions are found above the other tutorials. Long story short: if you just jump into a specific section and it references things you don’t understand (like VitaShell, or VPKs, etc.), then scroll up a bit to find those particular instructions.
Why mod a PS Vita?
There are many reasons to run a permanent mod/jailbreak on the PlayStation Vita. Here are some of my favorites:
- PS VITA GAMES. It goes without saying, but you can play Vita games on a PS Vita. But with a modded device, you can run backups of your games, which means you don’t have to constantly swap cartridges.
- SD2VITA. An SD2Vita adapter allows you to use a microSD card as storage for your permanently modded PS Vita. $30 for a 256GB storage solution? Count me in.
- ADRENALINE. This app runs a PSP environment directly on your PS Vita. This allows you to load and play PSP and PS1 games with perfect native performance. Because the PS Vita screen has exactly 2x the amount of pixels as the PSP, it scales perfectly.
- RETROARCH (AND OTHER EMULATORS). The PS Vita has a good amount of emulators available, and while it’s not the most powerful emulation machine for the money, you can still expect to play most classic retro games, plus a fair amount of Nintendo 64 games as well. Moreover, you can run emulators within Adrenaline, which features many optimized emulators, too.
- NATIVE PORTS. There are a good amount of native ports you can run on this device, including all three Grand Theft Auto III games, Max Payne, and more.
- PLUGINS. There are hundreds of plugins available for the PS Vita, which will allow you to make any number of small (or large) tweaks to your device, such as adding a battery % indicator, remapping buttons, and so on.
PS Vita 1000 vs PS Vita 2000
There are two models of PS Vita, each with its own unique characteristics. See the video above for a deep-dive comparison between the two models. In a nutshell: they both play the same games, the PS Vita 1000 has an OLED display, and the PS Vita 2000 is thinner and lighter.
There are some adjustments you can do to the PS Vita 2000 to improve its screen, which you can find here (requires jailbreaking first).
Buy an SD2Vita adapter
The single most important accessory you can buy for your PS Vita is the Funturbo SD2Vita card adapter. This will allow you to use a microSD card for storage on your device after it has been jailbroken. It’s the best $6 you could ever spend. I’ve heard bad things about other SD2Vita adapters, so I would stick with the Funturbo brand — I have two and they have worked perfectly.
I think that a 128GB card should be the bare minimum size you buy, and I recommend getting something with 256GB. PS Vita, PSP, and PS1 games are all fairly large, so this will ensure you can load up lots of games. Here are the microSD cards I recommend:
128GB cards: SanDisk Extreme Samsung EVO Select Samsung Pro Endurance (more reliable but pricey) SanDisk Ultra 256GB cards: Samsung EVO Select SanDisk Ultra
Update to the latest firmware
In order to jailbreak your PS Vita, it needs to be on firmware 3.60, 3.65, 3.68, 3.73 or 3.74. For best results, I recommend updating your firmware to 3.74 using the Vita’s official updater in the Settings app.
If you already have a jailbroken PS Vita but want to start over from scratch, you can remove custom firmware by following these instructions. After removing custom firmware and updating to the latest firmware, you can also go into Settings > Format > Restore this System to completely wipe the device.
Browser-based jailbreak
There is a new browser-based jailbreak method that allows you to hack the PS Vita through its built-in browser, with no need to connect the device to your computer.
Before we get started:
- This hack assumes that you are starting with a PS Vita that has been factory restored. Carrying over previous games or save games significantly complicates this process, and for support on moving existing catalogs over, I recommend consulting the VitaHacks community on Reddit or Discord.
- If you have a PS Vita 1000 model you will need an official Sony Memory Card inserted into the device, or you will need to create internal memory using this guide. If using an official card, any size memory card will work fine, the smaller the better since those are cheaper.
- Connect your PS Vita to your local WiFi, and I also recommend you log into the PSN Store at least once before starting this hack.
VitaDeploy came out in early 2021 and improves the jailbreaking process significantly. It’s an all-in-one solution for hacking the device as well as setting it up to work with a microSD card thanks to the SD2Vita adapter. This method is thoroughly documented in this guide, so be sure to check there if you run into any issues.
Install VitaDeploy and Henkaku
- On your Vita, open up the Web Browser app and navigate to jailbreak.psp2.dev. Note that in the video above, I use the URL deploy.psp2.dev, which is the older URL but it should redirect to jailbreak.psp2.dev anyway.
- There will be an orange menu that appears, tap on “Unlock my Vita” and then “Unlock”.
- On the black menu that appears, navigate to “Install Henkaku” and press X, and do the same for “Install VitaDeploy”.
- Navigate to “Exit” and press X to exit the application.
Install custom 3.65 firmware:
- Open the Vita’s Settings app, and open “HENkaku settings”. Select “Enable Unsafe Homebrew” and make sure you are connected to the internet.
- Open VitaDeploy and navigate to “Install a different OS” > “Quick 3.65 install”. The app will download and install v3.65 and downgrade via the modoru tool. It will ask you if you really want to do it — just press X to confirm. Once complete, the Vita will reboot.
- Head over to Settings > System Information to confirm that you are now on v3.65 with the enso permanent hack.
- Now that you are running firmware 3.65, the system may prompt you to update periodically, which is something you do not want to do. To remove this prompt, go into the HENkaku Settings and and make sure that “Enable Version Spoofing” is checked, and under “Spoofed Version” set it to 3.74. Now reset your device to make sure the settings stick.
Note: I recommend KEEPING VitaDeploy installed on your device, especially if you want to play game cartridges later (see the green box below for instructions).
Set up the SD2Vita adapter
- Insert a microSD card into the SD2Vita adapter, then insert the adapter into your Vita’s game card slot.
- Open VitaDeploy and navigate to Miscellaneous > Format a storage device. Select “Format target storage” and follow any prompts. Reboot the device.
- Open up your Settings app, then navigate to Devices > Storage Devices, and enable YAMT. Reboot the console.
- Open VitaDeploy > File Manager, and make sure that the “uma0” partition is visible. Navigate to the “ux0” partition and select all of the folders except “SceloTrash” (use the SQUARE button to select). Press the TRIANGLE button and select “Copy”.
- Navigate to the “uma0” partition, press TRIANGLE to bring up the menu, and select “Paste”.
- Return to the Settings app and navigate to Devices > Storage Devices. Set the following options:
ux0: SD2Vita uma0: Memory Card (or Internal Memory for PS Vita 2000)
Reboot the console, head to Settings > System Settings and the memory card size should now reflect the capacity of your microSD card.
Play original game carts
If you still want to play your old game cartridges, it is possible. But I would instead recommend using PKGj to install backups of your Vita games so that you don’t swap the SD2Vita and Vita carts too frequently, as it can create errors and is not an automatic restoration process. Additionally, switching back and forth between SD2Vita will likely remove any organization you’ve done of your app library. Either way, if you want to use your game carts, here is how to do it:
– Make sure you still have VitaDeploy installed on your device from the
– Go into Settings > Devices > Storage Devices and UNCHECK the “Use YAMT” option
– Turn off your PS Vita, removed the SD2Vita, and add your game cart. Power on the device, it will “rebuild database” and all of your loaded apps/games will disappear.
– Once you are done playing game carts, re-insert the SD2Vita card and go into Settings > Devices > Storage Devices and CHECK the “Use YAMT” option. Reboot your PS Vita.
– If the Vita doesn’t automatically “rebuild database”, you will need to force a refresh. Open VitaDeploy, choose File Manager, and then back out to the main root directory (where is shows ur0, ux0, etc.). Press the TRIANGLE button and select “Refresh LiveArea”. This will restore all of your games and apps.
Install core homebrew apps
- Open VitaDeploy > App Downloader, and install the following apps:
- VitaShell – a powerful file management system
- VitaDB Downloader – a handy tool to browse and download various apps and homebrew games.
- Adrenaline – a PSP environment that allows you to play PSP and PS1 games with perfect performance (more info here)
- PKGj – this app will install backups of your PS Vita, PSP, and PS1 games.
- vita-savemgr – allows you to dump and restore your save games.
- Custom Themes Manager – as the name implies, this allows you to manage custom themes.
- iTLS Enso – adds TSL v1.2 to the device, which fixes many plugin errors, adds more installer options, allows secure (https) internet access, and restores access to the PS Store.
- Registry Editor – this allows you to improve the color saturation on PS Vita 2000 models (more info here).
Understanding VPKs
Apps on the PS Vita are known as VPKs. Most of these you can find via the website VitaDB. My preferred way of installing VPKs is to find them via this website, then read up on the installation requirements (note that sometimes the installation instructions aren’t in VitaDB itself, but linked to the “Release Page” for each VPK in the VitaDB listing), and install them via VitaShell (which you installed in the step above).
Update! There is a new VitaDB Downloader app that will access the VitaDB repo and download the VPKs directly on your Vita.
Manual installation: To start, let’s make sure that VitaShell is properly configured. Open the app, then press the START button. Under “USB device”, make sure it’s set to “sd2vita”. Press the back button to back out of that menu. Now, connect your Vita to your PC and press the SELECT button. This should make the SD card contents available on your PC. Note that if you want to connect VitaShell via WiFi, those instructions are in the next section.
So let’s install a VPK for practice, using the app Wordle SDL. Head over to this page and click on the “Download VPK” button near the bottom. On your Vita, open up VitaShell, connect your USB cable between the PC and Vita, then press the SELECT button on the Vita. Your SD card contents should appear on the screen. Move the Wordle SDL VPK to the “downloads” folder on your Vita (or anywhere, really). Press the cancel button on your Vita to disconnect, navigate to the Wordle VPK, and click on it. Confirm the installation, and you’re done.
So in summary,
- Connect to your PC via USB using the VitaShell app
- Move the VPK over to a folder of your PS Vita (preferably the downloads folder)
- Launch the file within VitaShell on your device to install it
- The app is magically on your home screen
- Celebrate with champagne and mac & cheese
Here are some highlights to start you on your journey:
Tools and emulators that will improve your Vita experience include Moonlight HD (PC streaming), mGBA (GBA/GB/GBC), DaedalusX64-vitaGL (N64) (guide below), and Vita Media Center (movie player). The Vita can also play standalone PSP emulators. Check out the Adrenaline section for more info.
The Vita also has a ton of Ports available. Here are a few: DevilutionX (Diablo), Grand Theft Auto III, GTA3: Vice City, GTA3: San Andreas, GTA: Chinatown Wars, Half-Life, Max Payne, Minit, Sonic 1 and 2 ports, Sonic CD, and Baba is You. Bear in most of these ports will require commercial data files that you will need to supply yourself. Additionally, most will require plugins to work properly, so be sure to follow the ports’ instructions carefully. Speaking of plugins…
Understanding plugins
In previous guides, I had recommended using AutoPlugin to install plugins, but I’ve since learned that this can undermine the clean installation of plugins, which are essential components to getting certain apps to run properly. So instead I recommend manually installing plugins. Let’s do one for practice.
Go to this page and download the NoLockScreen v2 plugin. This will make it so that you don’t need to swipe down from the lock screen every time you power on or awaken your Vita. The file will be named “nolockscreen_v2.suprx”. Using VitaShell, transfer this file to your device. Then, still within VitaShell on your Vita, manually transfer this plugin to the following directory: ur0:tai/
Within that ur0:/tai folder, you will see a file named config.txt. Open that file within VitaShell, then about halfway through that file you will find a line named *KERNEL with a listing of some plugins (usually in skprx file format). This is where most skprx plugins will go, but because we’re using an suprx file for our example, we will use the *MAIN section instead (more info on the various sections are below). Within this listing, press the TRIANGLE button and select “Insert empty file”. Now with your cursor on that blank line, press the ENTER button and type the following using the Vita’s keyboard:
ur0:tai/nolockscreen_v2.suprx
From there, press the BACK button on your Vita and confirm that you want to save your modifications. Reboot your device for the plugin to take effect. And that’s it, that is the basic method to install plugins. To uninstall a plugin, remove it from the ur0:tai folder, and delete any mentions of it from the config.txt file.
There are three main sections of plugins within the config.txt, which can be broken out at such:
– *KERNEL plugins are for skprx plugins
– *MAIN is for plugins that affect LiveArea behavior (like the example above)
– *ALL is for plugins that work within apps
Note that improperly installing plugins can potentially BRICK the PS Vita. Be sure to consult the installation page of every plugin to ensure there are no conflicts with other plugins! The installation section is generally within the GitHub page for that plugin. If you encounter issues with a plugin, you can hold the L button while booting the Vita to bypass plugins, and then enter VitaShell to remove the issue.
For more in-depth support, I recommend visiting the HENkaku discord server.
Connect via WiFi FTP (VitaShell)
The simplest way to access your device is through a USB cable running VitaShell (when in VitaShell, just press the SELECT button to start the connection). But if you want to access your device wirelessly, VitaShell has that option as well.
Start up VitaShell, then press START to bring up the main settings. Change the “SELECT button” option to “FTP”, then press START to exit out of the main settings. Now, press SELECT. You should see a message with an FTP address, like this:
ftp://192.168.86.XX:1337
The “XX” in the address above will be unique to the IP address your Vita is currently using.
On your preferred FTP client (like WinSCP or FileZilla for Windows), start a new FTP connection. For the address, type in 192.168.86.XX (with “XX” being whatever is displayed on your Vita), and change the port to “1337”. Press the connect button on your client, and when it asks you for a username and password, don’t type anything and just press OK instead.
You should now be connected, with access to all of your file system on the device (not just the SD card).
Set up Adrenaline (PSP and PS1 emulator)
Adrenaline is a PSP emulator that basically boots into the original PSP environment. It’s wonderful. This is also the best way to play PS1 games, and some emulators (like for NES, SNES, etc.) are also pretty good from within PSP.
If you haven’t already installed Adrenaline while setting up VitaDeploy, download the latest version of Adrenaline.vpk from this link. Connect the Vita to your PC via VitaShell, then press SELECT on the Vita to enter USB mode. Copy the Adrenaline.vpk file onto your Vita, then disconnect from USB mode. Find the Adrenaline VPK within VitaShell and instal it, then go back to the home screen. You should now see the Adrenaline app there.
Open up Adrenaline, and it will prompt you to complete the download and installation of the 6.61 Adrenaline firmware. Press the X button to confirm, and once the download is complete it will exit Adrenaline. If you get an error about missing 6.61 on your device, the easiest fix is to just download v6.61 directly and place it in the folder that is indicated on the error screen (ux0:app/PSPEMUCWF/661.PBP). Be sure to rename your downloaded file from EBOOT.PBP to 661.PBP. Here is more information in case you run into this issue.
Re-open the app, and it will prompt you to install the firmware we just downloaded. That’s it, you should now be in the setup screen for a brand new PSP environment. Note that when opening Adrenaline, it will crash the first time. This is annoying, but normal. You can fix this error by modifying the plugin configuration using the instructions here.
The easiest way to add PSP and PS1 games to your device is through the PKGj app, but you can also manually add them. Note that the “pspemu” folder is hidden in Windows and Mac, so you must have hidden folders enabled in order to find it. This is where you add each file:
PSP: sdcard/pspemu/ISO/ PS1: sdcard/pspemu/PSP/GAME/(titleid)/EBOOT.PBP
For PSP, just place the .iso files in the folder listed above.
For PS1, the games must be in PBP format. You will need to organize the games by titleid within the folder above. I have found that the easiest place to find these titleids it through this website. If you cannot find the game you’re looking for, here is a more comprehensive list of each titleid, but it will come up with LOTS of results and so it may be a challenge to pare it down to the appropriate game. Just search for your game to find the appropriate titleid.
Once you have the titleid, make a folder inside the GAME folder with that titleid as the name. Within the titleid folder, you will need the game, named EBOOT.PBP (upper case). So for example, in order to play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, you will use the following path:
sdcard/pspemu/PSP/GAME/SLUS01066/EBOOT.PBP
When scaling PS1 within Adrenaline, I recommend using these settings:
X: 1.225 Y: 1.265
For PS1, I also prefer to set Graphics Filtering to Advanced AA, and turn Smooth Graphics OFF. Also, go into the “Open Official Settings” section within the Adrenaline Main Menu, then select Others Settings > Other Settings > Bilinear Filtering > OFF.
For PSP, I like the lcd3x and sharp bilinear (no scanlines) filters.
You can also use this handy PSP Emulators Installer app to install emulators directly into your PS Vita’s Adrenaline app. You would install this app just like any other vpk, and then run the installer script. This will install the following emulators to run on your PSP environment:
