Save Your Progress: How to Back Up and Restore PC Games (2024)

You never know when a hard drive failure or accidental re-format might erase all your hard-earned game progress, so it's better to be prepared. Just as you back up your important files, you should also be preserving your PC games in case disaster ever strikes.

Game launchers like Steam, Epic Games Store, EA, GOG Galaxy, and Ubisoft Connect offer ways to back up your save files, or even the entire game. Here's how to enable cloud saves, as well as how to back up and restore your games.

How to Enable Cloud Saves

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A game's files can (almost) always be re-downloaded, but your game saves are irreplaceable. Without backups, there's no way to restore a garage full of GTA V cars you spent hours acquiring and tricking out—short of starting over from scratch. Thankfully, every major game client will do most of the work for you.

By default, game launchers can back up your settings, saves, and other data to their own respective cloud services. These settings should be enabled by default, but you can double check in the following locations:

• Steam: Head to Steam > Settings > Cloud and make sure Enable Steam Cloud is enabled. You can also right-click any game, choose Properties, and ensure Keep games saves in the Steam Cloud for [game] is enabled under the General tab.

• Epic Games Store: Click your profile and then select Settings. Under Preferences, check to make sure that Enable Cloud Saves is checked.

• GOG Galaxy: Click the gear icon in the top left corner and go to Settings > Game Features, then make sure the Cloud Saves option has been enabled.

• Ubisoft Connect: Click the hamburger menu and navigate to Settings > General, then check Enable cloud save synchronization for supported games.

• EA Origin: If you're still using the old Origin app, click Origin > Application Settings > Installs & Saves and enable Saves under Cloud Storage. The new EA app does not yet have cloud save options.

How to Back Up Your Game Saves

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Save files don't take up much space, so you can also manually back up those saves yourself. You will just need to find out where a specific game stores its save files on your computer, then copy the file to a new location for safe keeping. You may have to look up the game in question to confirm where the save files are stored.

Games that utilize Steam's cloud saves, for instance, may store these files under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Userdata. You may also find some games place their save files in your Documents folder—look for a folder with the game's title, the publisher's name, or inside the My Games folder. Other titles may bury saves in your user's %APPDATA% folder.

Once you know where all your save files are, just copy those folders to your backup drive for safe keeping. Ideally, you should use a backup tool that does this automatically on a regular basis, whether it's Windows' built-in File History or Time Machine for macOS. You may also prefer to use a dedicated cloud backup service.

As long as you include those game-save folders in the backup alongside your other personal files, you'll always have them handy—and you can restore them to their original location on a new drive to pick up where you left off.

How to Back Up and Restore an Entire Game

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If you have a decent internet connection, backing up your game saves may be enough—after all, if you want to return to a game later, you can just re-download it from Steam. But if your internet connection is slow, backing up all the game's files to another drive allows you to re-install it much faster in the future.

It's also useful if you have a bunch of mods installed that took ages to tweak just right (my fellow Dovahkiin know what I'm talking about). You'll need more space on your backup drive than you would for save files, but storage has gotten pretty affordable.

If you want to move a game to another drive but keep it playable, head to Steam > Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders and click the + button. By creating a new Steam library on your secondary drive, you can right-click any game, head to the Local Files tab, and move it to the new library on that drive. For more information, and for instructions in other game clients, see our guide on moving PC games to another hard drive.

(Credit: PCMag / Microsoft)

If you want to back up the game files but don't need them to be playable (just ready to re-install in the future), copy the game's installation folder to your backup drive. You can also include the folder in your automated File History backup. Then you are free to uninstall the game, if you want.

Steam games will be stored under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common, while GOG games can be found in C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games. Other launchers, such as Battle.net will produce individual game folders under C:\Program Files (x86).

If the game is uninstalled and you want to play it again, just restore the folder to its missing location and click install in the game client. Instead of downloading everything from remote servers, it will see the files and verify their integrity so you can get playing quickly. Alternatively, if you have the space, you could just keep your entire C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam folder backed up with the rest of your personal data, ensuring nothing ever gets lost.

If you have any mods installed, though, be sure to back those up as well—third-party tools like Nexus Mod Manager may have their own backup methods, so be sure to read up on the game and mods in question. You don't want to start from nothing the next time you're feeling nostalgic for Minecraft.