Valheim Save File Location: Every Platform, Explained

The Valheim save file location on a standard Steam install is *%appdata%\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local* for your worlds and characters_local for your character. That holds true whether you’re playing solo, hosting from your own PC, or running a dedicated server on that same machine. Steam Deck, Linux, Xbox, and PC Game Pass each tuck saves somewhere slightly different, and guessing wrong costs you a useless backup or a world that seems to vanish after an update.

This guide covers the exact path for every platform Valheim runs on. It explains what each file inside a save actually does, and how to back one up, move it, or recover it when something breaks.

Knowing this matters even more once you’re hosting for friends instead of just playing solo. A crashed host machine or a careless reinstall can wipe a world your group has spent months on. That’s exactly the failure mode Physgun’s Valheim server hosting is built to avoid, with automated backups and a file manager that points straight at the save folder.

Where Valheim Save Files Live On Every Platform

Valheim uses Unity’s per-user storage system, so the base path shifts with your OS and how you’re running the game. Here’s every platform side by side.

Platform	World Saves	Character Saves
Windows (Steam)	*%appdata%\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local*	*%appdata%\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\characters_local*
Windows dedicated server	Same LocalLow path, under whichever account launches the server, unless you set -savedir	Same folder, characters_local
Steam Deck / Linux (Proton)	~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/892970/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/LocalLow/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/	Same prefix, characters_local
Linux dedicated server (native)	~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/, or your -savedir path	Same base, characters_local
macOS (no native client)	Mirrors the Windows path inside whatever compatibility layer you’re using (Whisky, CrossOver, forced Steam Play)	Same
Xbox / PC Game Pass	Synced through Xbox cloud saves tied to your Microsoft account, not a folder you browse directly	Same

• Older guides still point to plain worlds and characters folders. Iron Gate renamed them to worlds_local and characters_local so your on-disk copy and the Steam Cloud copy stop overwriting each other.

On a managed host, you don’t need to memorize any of this. The Physgun Gamepanel surfaces your world files through its File Manager, with full root access and no blocked folders. Open worlds_local and grab or replace a save in a couple of clicks.

World files also grow the longer you play. Some long-running worlds pass a gigabyte once a group has explored every biome. If you’re sizing a dedicated server plan and aren’t sure how much memory that translates to, Physgun’s free RAM calculator estimates it before you commit to a tier.

What’s Actually Inside A Valheim Save

Every Valheim world is really two files sharing one name.

• .db: the world itself. Terrain edits, placed structures, and dropped items, everything you and your crew have built or dug.
• .fwl: the world’s metadata. Seed, world generator version, and any modifiers you chose at creation.

Your character works the same way, just smaller.

• .fch: your character, inventory, skills, and unlocked map.

Valheim also keeps a rolling backup of each file with an .old extension every time it saves. A fresh Karve.db sits right next to Karve.db.old and Karve.fwl.old. That backup pair is the single most useful thing in the folder when something goes wrong.

Steam Cloud, Local Saves, And Why They Sometimes Fight

Steam Cloud sync for Valheim runs independently of the worlds_local and characters_local folders on your disk. That split is deliberate. Iron Gate built it that way so a bad cloud sync can’t silently overwrite the copy you’re actively playing.

The tradeoff shows up when you play on two machines, say a desktop and a Steam Deck. Steam sometimes flags a sync conflict and asks you to choose the local or cloud version. Pick wrong, and you lose whatever progress isn’t in that copy.

Dedicated servers skip this problem entirely. A server process isn’t tied to a personal Steam account’s cloud sync, so it reads and writes straight to disk. That’s one reason a world hosted on a dedicated server tends to stay more consistent than one you’re shuttling between two personal computers.

Backing Up A Valheim World The Right Way

To back up a world manually:

1. Close Valheim completely. A save caught mid-write can copy out corrupted.
2. Open your worlds_local folder from the table above.
3. Copy the three files sharing your world’s name, the .db, the .fwl, and their latest .old pair as a fallback.
4. Store the copies somewhere outside the game install, an external drive or cloud storage you control.

Do this before every major change on a dedicated server: a mod install, a big config edit, or anything hard to undo. Doing it yourself means writing a backup script and remembering to run it.

Physgun’s dedicated servers include automated Backups alongside manual ones instead. Snapshot a world before touching anything, and roll back in a few clicks if a change goes wrong. You can also pull a copy to your own machine anytime over SFTP Access, using the same credentials as your server’s SSH login.

• Not sure which file is the live one? Check the modified date. The most recently changed .db is the one Valheim is actively writing to.

Moving A World To A New PC Or A Dedicated Server

World files aren’t tied to a specific computer or Steam account, only to their filenames. Moving one is a copy-paste job as long as everything keeps its name.

To move a world onto a new machine or a dedicated server:

1. Find the .db and .fwl pair for the world you want to move.
2. Copy both files, keeping the exact same filename for each.
3. Drop them into the destination’s worlds_local folder, or the server’s configured -savedir.
4. Launch the world using that same name. Valheim matches saves by filename, not by any internal ID.

On a dedicated server, you don’t need direct disk access to do any of this. Upload the pair over SFTP Access, or drag them straight into the File Manager inside the Physgun Gamepanel. Both use the same login as your server’s SSH access.

• Modded worlds keep their mod data inside the same .db file. If the destination server doesn’t run the same BepInEx plugins, the world will still load, but anything those mods added won’t work correctly until matching plugins are installed there too.

Fixing The Most Common Valheim Save Problems

• World won’t load after a crash or bad shutdown: Rename the .old pair back to the live filenames, after backing up the current broken files first. Valheim saves an .old backup on every write, so it’s usually only minutes behind.
• World disappeared after an update: Check that you’re looking in worlds_local, not the older worlds folder some guides still reference. Your save is usually still there, just one folder over.
• Server loads the wrong world or an empty one: Confirm the -world launch argument points at the exact filename you expect. A mismatched value quietly starts a brand new world instead of loading yours.
• Character spawns with no items or the wrong skills: You loaded a different .fch file than you meant to. Characters are matched by the name typed at character select, not by save slot.
• World runs, but modded content is missing: The plugins that added it aren’t installed server-side. Save data alone doesn’t carry mod code with it.

Cross-Save Between PC, Xbox, PlayStation, And Switch

Valheim’s 1.0 release brought full crossplay across Steam, Xbox, PlayStation 5, and Switch 2, alongside the Deep North biome as the last piece of the map. Existing worlds and characters carried over into 1.0 without needing a fresh save.

Console versions don’t expose a save folder the way PC does. Xbox and PC Game Pass saves live inside Microsoft’s cloud save system tied to your account. Crossplay progress follows that account, not a specific file you could copy yourself.

Dedicated servers are still the exception worth knowing. A crossplay-enabled server hosts one shared .db and .fwl world that every connecting platform plays into. That’s still the setup you want for a persistent world your whole group plays on, regardless of what each person owns Valheim on.

Keeping Every Valheim World You Build Safe

Your Valheim saves boil down to a handful of small files: a .db and .fwl pair per world, an .fch per character, with an .old backup of each riding along. Know your platform’s path from the table above, and keep a copy of that pair somewhere outside the game folder. Most save disasters turn into a two-minute fix instead of a wipe once you do.

The bigger risk was never really the file format. It’s a crashed host machine, an update that lands at a bad time, or nobody remembering to back up before a big change. That’s the real argument for running your world on Physgun’s Valheim server hosting instead of a spare PC in the corner: automated backups, a file manager that skips the path-hunting, and a host that’s already up before your crew logs in.