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This page is part of IGN’s Valheim Wiki guide and details everything you need to know about backing up your save data to ensure that your world is safe from any potential bugs or glitches that may potentially corrupt or destroy your world.
As daunting as backing up your worlds and characters may seem, you may be surprised to learn just how easy it can actually be if you follow our simple instructions below.
How to Back Up Your Valheim Save Data
Before we get started, it’s important to make sure that your game is completely shutdown as copying your data while the game is active may potentially cause corruption to your files as you move them.
If you’re still fairly new to the world of videogames on PC, there’s a good chance that some of your files/folders may still be hidden. To ensure that you can see them, simply type “show hidden items” into the Windows search bar and open the system settings option. In here you will find an option to unhide your hidden files.
To back up your Valheim save data, you will firstly need to navigate to your game’s file location. Generally, you can find your save data in the following location:
- C:\Users\Username\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\
Alternatively, if your files are hidden you can manually find them by searching %appdata% in the Windows search bar.
This will open your files in the AppData\Roaming folder. From here, head back to the AppData folder and select LocalLow, followed by IronGate, and then Valheim.
Once you’ve reached the Valheim folder, you will find several folders titled Characters, Screenshots, and Worlds. Now copy these folders and paste them in a safe location – whether this be in a new folder on your Desktop or even another hard-drive. These files will act as your backup should you ever need to restore your data.
Should your world corrupt or you’re still looking to restore your world to an old save, simply copy your backup files and paste them into your Valheim folder, overriding any data you no longer want.
Do remember, as you progress through the game you will want to continually backup your data to ensure that you’ve always got a backup ready to go just incase something goes wrong.