A Valheim world is your group's whole history — every base, every boss, every wrongly placed portal. Here's how saving works on your server, what the Backups tab protects, and how to bring a world you already have.
Where your world lives
The server keeps its saves in the saves/ folder, which you can browse on the Files tab or over SFTP:
saves/worlds_local/<WorldName>/— the world itself. Since Valheim 1.0 a world is a folder, holding the world in chunkssaves/worlds_local/<WorldName>.dband.fwl— only present for a world uploaded from before 1.0; the server converts it to a folder on first load and leaves the pair beside itsaves/adminlist.txt,permittedlist.txt,bannedlist.txt— who may join and who may admin
Treat the folder as one thing: copy or download all of it, never single files from inside it.
How your world saves
- Periodically — every 30 minutes by default.
- On clean shutdown — the Stop button and scheduled restarts save before exiting.
- Rolling backups — the game keeps its own short-term copies next to the world files.
What it does not do is save on a crash. That's the gap dashboard backups exist to close.
What the Backups tab covers
The Backups tab snapshots the whole server, saves and lists included. Your plan includes a set number of backup slots; taking a new backup beyond the limit replaces the oldest. Restoring returns the whole server to that snapshot — do it with the server stopped, and expect anything that happened after the snapshot to be gone.
Take a manual backup before: a game update, a mod experiment, or changing the World Name.
Bringing a world you already have
Valheim 1.0 keeps pre-1.0 worlds, and the Deep North generates in any part of the map nobody has explored yet. To move a world onto your server:
- Find it on the machine that hosted it. Default locations:
- Windows:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local\ - Linux/Mac:
~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/ - Steam Cloud copies live under the Steam userdata folder for app 892970.
- Windows:
- Get it ready. A world that has been played on 1.0 is a folder named
<WorldName>— zip that folder (right-click → compress). A world last saved before 1.0 is a<WorldName>.dband<WorldName>.fwlpair — no zip needed. - On the Server Settings tab, under World, click Import a world and choose the zip (or select the
.dband.fwltogether). The dashboard checks the upload, puts it insaves/worlds_local/and selects it as your world. If a world with that name already exists you are asked before it is replaced, and the old one is kept insaves/_replaced. Prefer SFTP? Upload the folder tosaves/worlds_local/yourself and set World Name to match. Stuck? Open a ticket and we will place it for you. - Restart the server and watch the console for
Load world: <WorldName>.
Characters are not part of the world. Each player brings their own character file, so everyone keeps their skills and inventory automatically.
Starting a fresh world instead
Set a new World Name and restart. The old world files stay on disk untouched, so you can switch back at any time by setting the name again.
Restoring: the clean sequence
- Stop the server.
- Backups tab → choose the snapshot → Restore.
- Start the server and wait for
registered with join codein the console. - Have one player join and confirm the world is what you expected before announcing it.
If the world is already damaged
A world that crashes on load, or loads empty, usually follows a hard crash mid-save. Don't keep restarting into it: stop the server and restore the most recent good backup. If you're unsure which snapshot predates the damage, open a ticket and we'll help you identify the last healthy one before anything is overwritten.