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Some games on the Epic Games Store ship optional install components — things like language voice packs, high-resolution texture packs, or game-mode expansions — that not every player needs. Legendary supports Selective Download (SDL), which lets you choose which of these tagged file groups to install, saving disk space and download time. When SDL data is available for a game, Legendary will prompt you to choose your components interactively during installation. You can also skip, reset, or permanently disable SDL per-game through CLI flags or your config.ini.

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How SDL Works

Games that support SDL have their files grouped into install tags — named sets of files associated with a particular component. Legendary knows about these tag groupings for supported titles (such as Fortnite and Cyberpunk 2077) and can present them as a menu during installation. When you run legendary install <App> for a supported title, Legendary checks for SDL data. If data is found and the game hasn’t been installed before (or you’ve reset the SDL choices), an interactive prompt appears listing each available component and asking which ones you want.
SDL is only shown for games that have SDL definitions available. DLC installs are never subject to SDL prompting. If no SDL data is found for a game, all files are downloaded as normal.

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SDL Flags During Install

Use these flags to control SDL behavior at install time: 
legendary install <App> --skip-sdl
  • --skip-sdl silently selects only the __required tags defined for the game, downloading the minimum necessary components without prompting.
  • --reset-sdl clears your saved tag selection. The prompt will appear again on the next run. Any newly selected components will only be downloaded after a subsequent repair run.
  • --disable-sdl disables SDL for this title and downloads all tagged and untagged files.
After using --reset-sdl, Legendary saves your new tag choices but does not automatically re-download newly selected components. You must follow up with a repair run to actually fetch them:
legendary install <App> --repair

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File-Level Filtering

For more granular control, Legendary provides path-prefix filters and direct tag selection that work independently of SDL. These can be combined. 
# Only download files whose path starts with a given prefix
legendary install <App> --prefix "Engine/Content"

# Exclude files whose path starts with a given prefix
legendary install <App> --exclude "optional/highres"

# Download only files that carry a specific install tag
legendary install <App> --install-tag voice_de_de
--prefix and --exclude both accept multiple values — repeat the flag for each prefix you want to add. Files must match at least one --prefix to be included, and are dropped if they match any --exclude.

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Listing Files in a Manifest

Before installing, you can inspect the full file list for a game to understand what install tags are present and which files they cover. This is especially useful for crafting precise --prefix or --install-tag filters. 
# List all files in a game's manifest
legendary list-files <App Name>

# List only files with a specific install tag
legendary list-files <App Name> --install-tag voice_de_de

# Output in JSON format
legendary list-files <App Name> --json

# Output a hash list (path + SHA1, useful for verification scripts)
legendary list-files <App Name> --hashlist
The list-files command fetches the manifest from Epic’s servers if the game isn’t installed locally (or if you pass --force-download). The output includes filenames, sizes, and their associated install tags, giving you a clear picture of what you’re about to download.

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Permanent SDL Disable via Config

If you always want to download all files for a specific game without being prompted, set disable_sdl = true in that game’s section of your config.ini (~/.config/legendary/config.ini on Linux/macOS, %APPDATA%\legendary\config.ini on Windows): 
[AppName]
disable_sdl = true
This is equivalent to always passing --disable-sdl and persists across all future installs and updates for that game.
Run legendary list-files <App Name> before installing a large game to survey available install tags. This lets you build a targeted --install-tag or --exclude filter before committing to the download.

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