I recognize that some of the developers on Itch like to use external sites like Mega or G-Drive, and I do not mind downloading the games from those sites, but once the game has been downloaded and extracted to the games folder monitored by the app I am still unable to index it when scanning the folder.  If there was a way to generate the receipt file for an externally downloaded and installed game that would be very helpful.  Just a thought.

Also I recognize this may already be solved by someone or an existing tool, but I have spent a couple of days searching forums and search engines with little result.

Thanks.

This will likely never happen, we recommend that developers host their files on itchio so that we can guarantee that the files are available. This is especially important for paid content.

If you want a creator’s game in the app then I recommend advising them to stop using external files.

any luck in figuring this out?

Haven't had any luck myself, came here for answers