How do I update GodMode9?

As part of my recent spring cleaning of my Nintendo 3DS XL, I’ve been updating
the custom firmware (CFW) as well as a bunch of the homebrew / after market
software that I had installed. One such piece of software was GodMode9, and this was actually the first time I had ever updated it since installing it many moons ago.

Having never updated it before, I read the release notes for the current version. The instructions were great, but the author made mention that it was
probably the last time they’d be mentioning it in the release notes.

Since one of my primary goals with blogging is to document things for my future self, I figured that I probably outta post about this, knowing damn well that I’ll forget in the future.

So how do I update GodMode9? Here’s an extremely verbose set of steps, some optional, like jotting down your current version number to be able to confirm a successful installation:

1. Power off your Nintendo 3DS console
2. While holding the START button, power up your Nintendo 3DS console
3. On the lower touch screen, make note of the version number, mine was
   GodMode9 v1.7.1
4. Hold the R trigger and press START to power off the console
5. Remove the SD card from your Nintendo 3DS console
6. Insert the SD card into your computer or SD card reader
7. Download the latest copy of GodMode9 from the project’s releases page
8. Extract the contents of the ZIP archive
9. Copy GodMode9.firm to /luma/payloads/ on your SD card, which should
   overwrite an existing file
10. Copy gm9/scripts/ to /gm9/scripts/ on your SD card, which should
    overwrite the existing files
11. Unmount or eject the SD card, so you can “safely” remove it
12. Remove the SD card from your computer
13. Insert the SD card back into your Nintendo 3DS console
14. While holding the START button, power up your Nintendo 3DS console
15. On the lower touch screen, check that the version number is different than
    the one you wrote down in step 3, mine was GodMode9 v2.1.1
16. Press START to continue booting into the Nintendo 3DS system

There’s really not much to it. For those of you out there like me that are ultra
cautious, you can rename the existing files on your system first, instead of
overwriting them, just in case.