NDS4iOS is the best Nintendo DS Emulator for iOS devices at the moment, no doubts about that. If you are someone who loves Nintendo, you would love to have it on your iOS device. But unfortunately, NDS4iOS is not available for download in the Apple App Store; you cannot simply download and install it from there.

But that doesn’t mean you can never get your hands on NDS4iOS Nintendo DS Emulator on your iOS device. Actually, with a little bit of patience and few minutes of your time, you can easily install NDS4iOS on your iPhone or iPad. In this guide, I have given the step by step process by which you can download and install NDS4iOS. Let’s begin.

How to install NDS4iOS

Even though NDS4iOS is the most popular Nintendo emulator and is unanimously loved by fans, it is still not the official app for playing Nintendo console games on iOS devices. Hence, the only way to install this app is from third-party alternatives to App Store.

Below, I have listed all the different methods by which you can install NDS4iOS on your iOS device. If any one of them fails for you, try the other one.

1. Download NDS4iOS Nintendo Emulator via iOSEmus

Step 1: On your iPhone and iPad, launch Safari and go to this website: iosem.us

Step 2: In the website’s home page, it will instruct you to choose an icon to install. Just tap on any of them and It will take you to the iOSEmus profile. We will need to have this profile installed on iOS device to install NDS4iOS Emulator. Tap Install, enter your passcode/TouchID if required, then tap Install again. Since it’s just a profile, it will only take a couple of seconds get installed on your device.

Step 3: Once the installation is completed, go back to your iOS device home screen and launch iOSEmus. Once you are in, go to the Install tab. Now you are at the Home tab where it first loads the data. This is where you will find the list of all the tweaked apps. Scroll down and look for nds4iOS. If you see a green checkmark right next to it, it means that the app is available to install, yay!

Step 4: Select NDS4iOS and follow the on-screen instructions to install it on your device. Once you have successfully installed the app, the next step is to go to Settings and trust the developer.

Related: “Untrusted Enterprise Developer” iPhone Error – How to Fix

Please note that you will still need to install ROM files to actually play games. I will guide you on how to do it a little bit later in this post. If for some reason, if you find NDS4iOS is marked with a red checkmark icon, then keep reading to get this app by using other methods listed in this post.

2. Download NDS4iOS Nintendo Emulator Using iEmulators

Step 1: Launch Safari and go to iemulators.com. Then, go to the Apps tab.

Step 2: Scroll down until you find nds4ios. See if it is marked as being revoked and if it’s not, you’re good to go.

Step 3: Tap on it to open the details page and then tap Install. When prompted, tap on Install and follow the on-screen instructions.  Once the installation is completed, go to the Settings app and trust the developer. Now you should be able to install ROM or reload your game data.

3. Download NDS4iOS Using TutuApp

Step 1: Open Safari browser and go to TutuApp’s Home Page

Step 2: When the website is fully loaded, tap on the “Install now” button. When prompted, tap Install to confirm the installation. The website also has clear step by step instructions on how to install it properly as well.

Step 3: Go back to the home screen and wait for the installation process to complete. Once the installation is complete, you should see the TutuApp icon on the home screen.

Step 4: When you open the TutuApp for the first time, you will get a message that the app’s developer has not been trusted yet. All you have to do is go to Settings > General > Device Management, then under the Enterprise App section, find and trust the certificate of TutuApp app. Now you are all set to proceed!

Step 5: Launch TutuApp and search for nds4ios using the search field. You might sometimes find the app on featured section on the homepage of TutuApp as well, since it’s a popular modified app. Just click on the Download button and select Install when TutuApp prompts you to confirm the installation.

The final step, go to Settings app > General > Profile, look for the profile associating with NDS4iOS and choose Trust.

4. Sideload the IPA file to your iOS device

Note:

There are downsides for using this method to install the NDS4iOS app.

1. You need a computer for this method.
2. Every 7 days, the app needs to be re-installed due to Apple’s restrictions on free developer accounts.

Step 1: On your computer, click this link to download the IPA file of NDS4iOS.

Step 2: Follow the instructions in this article to install Cydia Impactor and learn how to use it to install/sideload IPA file into iPhone: How to install iPA files on iPhone without Jailbreak

Step 3: Once you have installed the NDS4iOS app from your computer, open the Settings app and go to General > Profiles & Device Management and find the Spotify++ app profile (ideally in this situation, it should be your Apple ID). Open it and click ‘Trust‘ twice.

Step 4: Done. Now you should be use the NDS4iOS app on your iOS device without any issues.

You can use any of the above 4 methods as per your convenience to download the NDS4iOS app. But please be noted that NDS4iOS is just an emulator and hence it does not have any actual game data. In order to play console games, you will have to load the game ROMs your own which I have covered below.

How to Add Nintendo DS ROMs to NDS4iOS

Downloading Nintendo Game ROMs are also very easy. You can do a quick google search on Safari and directly add it to nds4ios in a matter of minutes.

Once you have found the download link of your desired game, simply tap on it, Safari will start downloading the game ROM immediately. Please note that it will not explicitly inform you that the download is in progress; be sure to keep an eye on the loading indicator. It is a game ROM file which is usually large in size, therefore, it will take relatively longer time than loading a normal web page. DO NOT quit Safari as it will interrupt the whole process. Kindly stay patient during this step.

When the download is completed, you should see the option to open the ROM in nds4ios itself, as indicated in the image above. Select it and the game will appear in your emulator.

If the ROM file is in .rar format, you should first extract it and re-compress in a zip format before proceeding. Here’s how you can do the same:

1. On your iOS device, go to App Store and install FileMaster.
2. Open the Safari web browser navigate to a website from where you can download NDS ROMs from. If you don’t know any such sites, simply search for ‘nds roms‘ on Google.
3. Find the game you want to download and tap on the download link, and wait for the download process to complete. Do not close Safari as its loading indicator is running.
4. Once the download is complete, open the file in FileMaster app and extract it. You will now see a .nds file which is the original game file. Tap on hold the .nds file and select zip. This will zip it up and put the zip in the same folder.
5. Press and hold the zip file you have created and select “Open with” option. From there, choose NDS4iOS to import the game into the app.

If you want the process to be simply my advice is that you should download ROMs on your computer, extract and zip it up there. Then upload the resulting file to Dropbox. You can then easily import the ROM from Dropbox to NDS4iOS by using the “Open in” feature.

Alternatively, if for some reason you cannot install ROMs from Safari, you can choose to use iTunes. Here is how to use iTunes to load ROMs onto NDS4iOS.

Step 1: Download the ROM file of the game you want to install. If it is a compressed file (.zip or .rar) then you have to uncompress it. Make sure you have a .nds file so that NDS4iOS can load the data.

Step 2: Connect your iOS device to your computer and launch iTunes. Then click your device’s icon to switch to device management section and select Apps from the sidebar.

Step 3: Scroll down to the “File Sharing” area, select nds4ios from the app list. Under “nds4ios Documents”, click on “Add file…” and look for the .nds file you prepared then select it.

Step 4: Wait for iTunes to copy app’s documents to your iOS device; it will take a few seconds. Once done, hit the Done button. Now go back to the app, you should see the game you’ve transferred in the ROM list. And that will be all; you are good to go!

Games which have simple graphics such as Pokemon and Super Mario work extremely well. There is no lagging while playing these games the whole time.

But it is entirely a different case for games like Grand Theft Auto which are quite big in size. The emulator begins to perform slowly and the movement seems to be not smooth anymore. The age of the your iOS device also plays a huge part in this. If you have a newer device, you might have a smoother experience.