Game server save files explained: where every world lives

A game server's world is a handful of files in a folder you can name exactly, and the folder is rarely next to the server executable. Most Linux servers write saves under the home directory of the user they run as - ~/.config, ~/.local/share or a dot-folder named after the developer - while others keep them inside the install directory under Saved or saves. The table below gives the path for each common game. Two rules apply to all of them: copy a save only when the server is stopped or has just written one, and check whether players' characters live on the server or on their own PCs, because that decides what a transfer actually moves.

Four ways games store a world#

Knowing which kind of save a game uses tells you how it fails and how to back it up.

The one-file games are convenient until the file is damaged, at which point there is nothing to salvage. Region-based games are more forgiving: a bad chunk in Minecraft affects that area, and the rest of the world loads. Database-backed servers need a different backup tool entirely, which is why FiveM owners who only back up the server folder discover, on restoring, that every player's money and inventory are gone. Database backups and restores covers that side.

Where each game keeps its saves#

These are the default locations on a Linux dedicated server. ~ is the home directory of the user the server runs as.

Several of these move with a setting. Valheim's -savedir relocates everything. 7 Days to Die reads UserDataFolder from serverconfig.xml. V Rising writes under whatever -persistentDataPath points to, inside a versioned Saves folder. Enshrouded uses saveDirectory in enshrouded_server.json. DayZ's storage folder number follows the instanceId in serverDZ.cfg. If a world is not where the table says, check the launch line and the config before searching the disk.

Some games keep no world at all. Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2 and other round-based Source games reset the map every round; what you need to keep is configuration, bans and plugin data. FiveM's persistent state - characters, money, vehicles - lives in its database, with the server folder holding only resources and config.

Hidden folders on a panel host

On a Pterodactyl-based host the server runs in a container whose home directory is usually /home/container, which is also the root you see in the file manager. A path like ~/.config/unity3d/... therefore appears as .config/unity3d/... at the top of the server's files. Folders starting with a dot are hidden in many file browsers and SFTP clients by default; turn on "show hidden files" before concluding the save is missing. SFTP and the file manager covers connecting with a client that shows them.

What the server owns, and what players keep#

This decides what a world transfer actually transfers, and it surprises people every time.

• Character on the player's PC: Valheim and Terraria. The server stores the world; each player's character, inventory and skills live in their own game folder. Moving a world to a new server keeps everyone's gear automatically, and a server cannot stop a player arriving with items from elsewhere.
• Character on the server: Palworld, 7 Days to Die, Project Zomboid, ARK, Rust, DayZ, Unturned, Don't Starve Together and most others. Characters are part of the save. Copy the whole save folder or players arrive as new characters.
• Character in a database: FiveM frameworks and DarkRP. The world is the map that ships with the game; everything that matters is rows in a database.

Palworld deserves a specific mention. Characters are stored in Players/ under files named after a player ID, and a world moved from a co-op game to a dedicated server does not match the host's ID cleanly. The host typically arrives as a new character while everyone else is fine. The fix involves editing save data with community tools, and it is covered in moving a Palworld co-op save to a dedicated server.

Files that are not saves but you still want#

A save folder alone does not reproduce a server. The other files that carry state:

• Admin, ban and allow lists. Valheim's adminlist.txt, bannedlist.txt and permittedlist.txt sit beside worlds_local. Minecraft's ops.json, whitelist.json, banned-players.json and banned-ips.json sit in the server root.
• Account databases. Project Zomboid keeps accounts, passwords and the whitelist in ~/Zomboid/db/<servername>.db, separate from the world. Lose it and every player must register again.
• Plugin and mod data. Minecraft plugins keep their data in plugins/<Name>/ - economies, claims, permissions. Oxide plugins in Rust keep data in oxide/data/. These are often more valuable than the world.
• Server config. server.properties, serverconfig.xml, the Unreal .ini files. Cheap to keep, slow to reconstruct.
• Generated maps. 7 Days to Die random worlds live in GeneratedWorlds/, separately from the save that uses them. Copy the save without the world and the server cannot load it.

A useful test of a backup: could you rebuild the server from it on a fresh machine with nobody noticing? If the answer depends on remembering a setting, the backup is incomplete.

Copying a save safely#

Every game in the table keeps part of the world in memory and writes it out periodically. A file copied while the game is halfway through writing it can be truncated or inconsistent, and a copy taken twenty minutes after the last save is missing twenty minutes of play.

The safe sequence:

1. Save, then stop. Send the game's save command if it has one (save-all in Minecraft, save in Valheim's admin console, saveworld in 7 Days to Die, /save in Palworld), then stop the server cleanly and wait for the log to confirm.
2. Copy the whole folder, not individual files. Many games keep an index or metadata file beside the data, and a partial copy is worse than none.
3. Start the server and check it loaded the right world before telling anyone it is back.

If you cannot stop the server, some games let you pause writes. Minecraft's save-off, then save-all flush, then the copy, then save-on produces a consistent copy of a running server. Most other games have no equivalent, and a panel backup taken while they run captures whatever was last written to disk - which is why sending a save command right before a scheduled backup matters. How often each game writes, and what changing that costs, is in game server autosave intervals.

On RE:NODE every game plan has backup slots; a backup can be taken on demand or on a schedule, restored with a button, downloaded, and locked so rotation never deletes it. The Schedules tab can send the save command first and take the backup a minute later, which closes the gap above. Backups are stored off the machine they protect, but they are deleted with the server, locked ones included - download one before you cancel anything.

Moving a world onto a server#

The general procedure works for nearly every game:

1. Find the world on the source machine. For single-player and co-op saves on Windows, the usual places are %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\<Developer>\<Game> (Unity games such as Valheim), %LOCALAPPDATA%\<Game>\Saved\SaveGames (Unreal games such as Palworld and Satisfactory) and Documents\My Games\<Game>.
2. Stop the destination server.
3. Upload the world into the server's save location from the table, matching the folder structure exactly.
4. Point the server at it. Most games need the world or session name set in the config or launch line, matching the file name including capitals.
5. Start and read the log. A line saying the server is generating a new world means it did not find yours.

Game-specific walkthroughs with every pitfall: uploading a Valheim save, Satisfactory settings and saves, and the Terraria world transfer guide.

How big saves get, and why it matters#

A new world is small. A world people have lived in for months is not, and the growth catches up with disk quotas and backup slots at the least convenient moment.

The rough shape for common games:

These are orders of magnitude, not promises; mods, map size and how much players explore move them a lot.

Three things follow. First, exploration is what grows Minecraft and 7 Days to Die worlds, not building. Every chunk or region a player visits is generated and written, and an elytra flight across unexplored terrain can add more to the world in an hour than a month of building. A world border is the standard way to keep that bounded - world border and pre-generation covers it. Second, many games keep their own backups beside the world: Valheim's timed backups, Factorio's autosave slots, Satisfactory's rotating autosaves, ARK's timestamped .ark copies. Those copies multiply the space a world takes on disk, and they are the first thing to check when a disk quota runs out. Third, a backup archive is roughly the size of everything it contains, so a world that has grown fivefold also makes every backup fivefold larger. If backups suddenly start failing or taking much longer, the world's growth is the usual reason.

Check the size of the save folder every few weeks. The panel's disk graph shows the total; the file manager, or du -sh * in a shell on your own machine, shows which folder is responsible. How much storage a game server needs has sizing by game.

Version upgrades and one-way saves#

Most games upgrade a save in place when a newer server version opens it, and many cannot open an upgraded save on the older version again. Minecraft is explicit about it: opening a world in a newer version converts it, and going back is unsupported. Satisfactory, 7 Days to Die and Project Zomboid have each had major versions where old saves were not compatible at all and a new world was required.

That makes the copy taken before an update the most valuable backup you will ever have. It is your only route back if the update breaks mods, ruins performance, or simply turns out to be one the group did not want. Game server version pinning and rollbacks covers holding a server on a version deliberately.

Troubleshooting saves#

The server generated a new world instead of loading mine. The world name in the config does not match the file or folder, often by case or extension. Your original is still there; fix the name and restart.

The world loads but everyone's character is new. You copied the world but not the player data, or the game identifies players differently on a dedicated server than in co-op. Check the player folder came across, and for Palworld see the host-save note above.

The save folder is empty. You are looking in the install directory and the game writes to the home directory, or the file browser is hiding dot-folders.

Progress from the last hour is gone after a crash. The game had not saved since. Lower the autosave interval and make sure stops are clean - why your game server keeps restarting helps tell a crash from a memory stop.

A restored backup is older than expected. The backup ran while the game held unsaved changes in memory. Send a save command before the backup.

FAQ#

Where does a dedicated server store its world on Linux?

Usually under the home directory of the user running it - ~/.config, ~/.local/share or a game-specific dot-folder - or inside the install directory in a Saved or saves folder. The table above lists the defaults for each common game.

Can I move a single-player world to a dedicated server?

For most games, yes: copy the world folder or file into the server's save location and set the world name to match. Games that store characters on the server may treat the original host as a new player.

Do I need to stop the server to back up the world?

For a guaranteed consistent copy, yes, or at least force a save first. A copy of a running server only contains what the game last wrote to disk, and a file caught mid-write can be damaged.

Why is my character not on the server world?

In Valheim and Terraria, characters live on your own PC and you bring them with you. In most other games, characters are part of the server save, so a fresh server or an incomplete copy means a fresh character.

How big do save files get?

From a few megabytes for a young Valheim or Terraria world to several gigabytes for a long-running Minecraft or 7 Days to Die world with lots of explored terrain. Plan disk for the world, its backups and some headroom for growth.