Short answers to the questions that come up most. Each one links to the guide that covers it properly.
Do I need a Steam Web API key, or to sign in to Steam? No. Achievement lists are fetched with a keyless chain of public endpoints, and nothing requires an account. For your own Steam unlocks, Steam requires your profile and Game details to be public; connecting a Steam account is the optional alternative, and covers Steam Family too - see Connected accounts.
Which platforms does it run on? Windows 10 and Windows 11 only. Packaged releases include their own runtime; Node.js is needed only to build from source.
Do I have to connect any account? No. Steam, Epic and Xbox PC can each be connected optionally, to read what the local files do not carry; every token is encrypted before it is stored on this PC. Everything else works without an account.
Does it work offline?
Yes, for local sources and anything already cached. Achievement names, descriptions and artwork are
fetched online the first time and then reused from
%APPDATA%\Achievement Watcher Next\steam_cache.
Simple or Advanced - do I lose anything by choosing Simple? No. Simple hides controls, it never turns a feature off. No parser, watcher, scan or stored value changes with it, and switching back restores every control with the value it already had. See Getting started.
A game is missing. Check that its source is enabled in Settings → Sources, run Smart Find under Settings → Folders, and turn off Installed games only to see whether it is known but no longer considered installed. Full checklist: Troubleshooting.
A game shows “No achievements”. That game has no achievement set at all. It stays launchable and keeps tracking playtime, and it is left out of completion statistics rather than dragging the average down as a 0%.
A game shows 0% even though I have unlocked achievements. There is a schema but no runtime unlock file. Open the game’s Game Health panel - it names the missing piece and offers only the repairs that apply.
Why does the same game appear twice? It was found through two sources. Merge Duplicates in Settings → General combines them; if one entry is a stale save folder for a game you now own elsewhere, blacklist it.
A game update added achievements and I do not see them. A cached list re-checks itself every 3 days. To pick them up now, use Settings → Advanced → Recheck achievement lists. Nothing already cached is removed by that check.
Nothing appears when I unlock something. Start with the Notifications row of that game’s Game Health panel: it names the transport that last delivered and why. Then work through If a test or unlock does not appear.
The overlay popup does not show in one particular game. That game is very likely in exclusive fullscreen, where an always-on-top popup is not drawn at all. On Automatic this is handled for you: that unlock arrives as a Windows notification instead. See how Automatic decides.
Notifications are hidden while I play. That is Windows’ Do Not Disturb. Turn on Priority notifications and approve Windows’ one-time request - see Priority Windows notifications.
Can I change how the popup looks, or share a design?
Yes - nine presets ship with the app, the Preset Designer builds your own with ordinary controls,
and any preset exports to a single .awpreset file. See
Presets and the Preset Designer.
Is the in-game overlay the same thing as the popup?
No. The popup is a one-shot notification styled by a preset. The overlay is the full achievement
list you open with Ctrl+Shift+K while a game runs - see the Overlay guide.
Does AW Next modify my games? Only when you ask it to. Reading achievements is read-only. The emulator repair tools - in a game’s right-click Emulator & tools submenu and under Settings → Emulators - do write to a game folder, always after a confirmation and always with a backup. Use them only with games you own.
My antivirus flagged a file, or removed one.
Almost certainly the Steam emulator or a Ubisoft loader, and it is a false positive. Those files
stand in for a game’s Steam or Ubisoft library, which is exactly the behaviour detection engines look
for, so they are flagged on what they do rather than on anything they contain. The alert fires the
moment a file is written - a repair you ran, opening Settings → Emulators, or automatic repair
during a scan - and Windows Defender takes every copy at once, including the ones installed with the
app. Nothing is written unless you asked for one of those. Allow the file your antivirus named, or
exclude %APPDATA%\Achievement Watcher Next\cache; never switch protection off. See
Troubleshooting → Antivirus.
Windows SmartScreen warns about the installer.
Releases are signed with the project’s own self-signed certificate rather than a commercial one, so
SmartScreen may still ask for confirmation. You never need to install that certificate. Download only
from the official releases page and
check the installer against the SHA-512 value in the matching latest.yml.
Where is my data, and does updating lose it?
Everything lives in %APPDATA%\Achievement Watcher Next, and installing a newer build over an older
one preserves it. The first launch after upgrading imports an older Achievement Watcher folder
without ever modifying or deleting it - see
Updates and existing data.
How do I quit completely? Closing the window keeps AW Next in the system tray so tracking continues. Use the tray menu to exit fully.
How does this differ from Achievement Watcher 2.x? AW Next is a continuation with a modern runtime and a large compatibility, reliability and feature pass. Side-by-side table: Comparison.
Can it get me games, keys or accounts? No, and the issue tracker cannot help with that either. AW Next contains no game files and does not bypass online ownership checks.
I found a bug / I have an idea. Open an issue with the app version, your Windows version, the source involved and the relevant logs. For a suspected vulnerability, use the private process in the security policy instead.
Still stuck? Troubleshooting goes through each symptom in order.