An Enshrouded world is a folder, and your group's bases are in it. Here is where it lives on your server, how the game saves it, what the Backups tab protects, and the clean way to restore.
Where your world lives
The dedicated server writes the world to the folder named by saveDirectory in its configuration, which is savegame by default. Browse there on the Files tab or over SFTP. Keen's FAQ says a world is between 1 and 100 MB.
Characters are not in it. Keen stores each player's progress — level, skills, inventory — on that player's own machine. Nothing on the server holds a character, so no server backup can lose or restore one.
Two other paths worth knowing:
logs/enshrouded_server.log— the server log. The[Session] 'HostOnline' (up)!line means the server is fully up; older logs are moved tologs/backup.enshrouded_server.json— the configuration. Manage it from the Server Settings tab rather than editing it here.
How saving works
Keen's server autosaves the world on its own — every 10 minutes on the build it runs today (measured on our servers; Keen's older material said five). On our servers the game keeps five rolling save files plus an index inside savegame, overwritten in place as it goes. Stopping the server does not write an extra save, so anything since the last autosave — up to 10 minutes of play — can be lost on a stop. If the last few minutes matter, take a backup first, then stop.
The autosave is not a backup. It overwrites the world in place, and Keen documents no automatic backup on the server — Keen's advice for a self-hosted server is to copy the save folder elsewhere. On Connect, that is what the Backups tab is for.
What the Backups tab covers
The Backups tab snapshots the whole server — the savegame folder, the configuration and the logs together. Backups can be taken by hand here or on a schedule from the Schedules tab; either kind restores with one click. Your plan includes a set number of backup slots — when they are all used, delete an old backup before taking a new one.
Take a manual backup before:
- a game update you expect to be large — including 1.0 on 15 October 2026 (Keen),
- uploading a different world,
- handing the Admin password to someone new,
- experimenting with the game settings preset.
Restoring returns the whole server to that snapshot. Anything that happened after it is gone, so restore deliberately, with the server stopped.
Downloading the world yourself
A backup you hold is the one nobody can take away. On the Files tab, open savegame and download it. Do it with the server stopped so you do not catch an autosave mid-write. That copy is also what you would upload to a new server if you ever change region — see Upload your world.
Restoring: the clean sequence
- Stop the server.
- Backups tab → choose the snapshot → Restore.
- Start the server and wait for
HostOnlinein the console. - Have one player join and confirm the world is what you expected before announcing it.
To restore just the world rather than the whole server, stop the server, upload your own copy into savegame, and start — the steps are in Upload your world.
Keeping your settings across updates
Your server checks Steam for the current game build on every restart. Your configuration is not part of what Steam updates: enshrouded_server.json is your file, and the Server Settings tab writes to it. A game patch does not reset your name, roles or passwords. The Backups tab includes the file anyway.
Before 1.0
Keen has not said whether the 1.0 build changes the world format, or whether existing worlds carry over unchanged. Take a backup before the restart that pulls 1.0, and if the world will not load after the update, stop the server, restore the last good backup, and open a ticket with the date the world was last known good so we can help identify the right snapshot.
Related
- Moving a world in: Upload your world
- Every setting on the tab: Server Settings