Trading Paints Downloader options and their meanings

Trading Paints Downloader option: Start Trading Paints on system startup

If you enable “Start Trading Paints on system startup” in the Trading Paints Downloader, the Trading Paints Downloader program will open automatically when you start your computer, minimized to the system tray.

This is a convenient option to select so you don’t have to think about launching the program before you start racing.

Trading Paints Downloader option: Automatically refresh paints

When “Automatically refresh paints” is selected in Trading Paints Downloader, paints that have been downloaded will automatically load onto cars. Cars that are in the state of refreshing will turn white briefly, then re-load with the custom paint visible on the car.

When unchecked, paint files will download, but will not be visible on cars until a manual refresh is performed. The iRacing default command to perform a manual refresh is Ctrl + R.

We suggest leaving this option checked, which is the default option.

Trading Paints Downloader option: Clean up downloaded files when I exit iRacing

When “Clean up downloaded files when I exit iRacing” is checked, temporary paint files that Trading Paints Downloader downloads during an iRacing session are cleaned up and removed from your computer when you exit iRacing or Trading Paints Downloader.

If unselected, downloaded paint files will not be removed from your computer when you exit iRacing or Trading Paints.

Unused paint files left on your computer can accumulate disk space needlessly, so we recommend keeping this option checked.

In some cases, temporary paint files aren’t released from memory and can’t be deleted. We suggest occasionally cleaning up your paint folder manually.

Trading Paints Downloader option: Clean up drivers existing paint files before fetching new paints

When “Clean up drivers’ existing paint files before fetching new paints” is checked, Trading Paints Downloader will remove any drivers’ existing paint files on your computer before grabbing their latest and most accurate paints (including decal layers) from Trading Paints.

Keeping this option checked ensures the paints you see in iRacing are the paints each driver has defined on Trading Paints.

For instance, if a driver had previously used a decal layer on their car, you raced against that driver at one point and chose not to keep “clean up downloaded files” checked, but then that driver removed their decal layer on Trading Paints, rather than ignoring the file, Trading Paints Downloader will clear out any existing paint files associated with that driver and replace them with what they currently have loaded onto Trading Paints.

We recommend keeping this option checked.

Trading Paints Downloader option: Update my own paints

When “Update my own paints” is checked, Trading Paints Downloader will download the paints you’ve assigned for yourself under My Paints in Trading Paints.

If not selected, Trading Paints will skip downloading your own paints on your computer and display a fallback paint instead.

Note that other drivers using Trading Paints will see the paint you are using. Changing the “Update my own paints” option only changes your car on your computer.

We recommend keeping this option checked and making adjustments to My Paints if you need to adjust which paint is displayed for your car.

Trading Paints Downloader option: Show output from activity

When “Show output from activity” is checked, Trading Paints Downloader will display a box containing a live information output of what the program is doing.

It also adds a “Save Output” button that creates a text file on your Desktop containing the contents of the current output window.

This option is useful for detecting downloading issues and debugging purposes. If you ever submit an issue report relating to Trading Paints Downloader, please attach your “Save Output” log so our team can investigate the issue with as much knowledge and information as possible.

“Show output from activity” is unchecked by default, as it does not change the operation of the program, and the information presented in the output window is not always necessary or helpful to most users.

Trading Paints Downloader option: Keep my paints synced from website

When checked, the “Keep my paints synced from iRacing” option in the Trading Paints Downloader will download your paint files from Trading Paints onto your computer, even when you are not in a sim session on iRacing.

If you make changes to your paints on the Trading Paints website with the Trading Paints Downloader open, enabling this option will also immediately download your new or updated paints to your computer, even without iRacing running.

You may want to enable this option if you want to see your paints from Trading Paints in the iRacing 3D car viewer.

This option is disabled by default in order to prevent extra file downloads.

Trading Paints Downloader option: Re-Download Paints

When the Trading Paints Downloader detects you’re on the track in iRacing, the “Re-Download Paints” button will appear in the Downloader.

The Re-Download Paints button starts the download process over from the beginning, deleting the files that have already been downloaded, re-grabbing the drivers from the session, and re-downloading all the paints from the session.

The Re-Download Paints button does not need to be used in normal operation of Trading Paints, but it could be useful in the event of troubleshooting.