How to back up your game saves automatically

Losing a save file means losing hours of progress. Hoard backs up your PC game saves automatically, keeps a full version history so you can always go back, and keeps every save in sync across your PCs and Steam Deck, so you pick up wherever you left off.

What Hoard backs up

Hoard detects the save folders of the games you play and copies them to your own cloud — either Hoard One or a server you host yourself. Every backup is versioned, so older copies are never overwritten.

To find where each game stores its saves, Hoard reads the same community save-location database that powers Ludusavi, so detection works out of the box for thousands of titles. The difference is what happens next: instead of leaving the backup on your disk, Hoard versions it in the cloud automatically.

Set up automatic backups

1. Download and install Hoard for Windows, macOS or Linux from the download page.
2. Sign in, or point the app at your self-hosted server.
3. Open the Library. Hoard scans for installed games and lists the saves it finds.
4. Add the games you want to protect. Hoard locates each save folder automatically; you can add a path by hand if a game isn't detected.
5. Leave automatic mode on. Hoard watches the save folders and backs them up every time a game saves, and again when you stop playing.

From now on every session is captured without you doing anything.

Where PC games actually keep their saves

There is no single place, which is the whole reason a tool like this exists. In practice a save ends up in one of these:

• Inside Steam, at userdata/<UserID>/<AppID>/remote/ — the folder Steam Cloud itself syncs.
• Documents\My Games\…, the closest thing Windows has to a convention.
• %APPDATA%, %LOCALAPPDATA% or LocalLow — where most Unity and Unreal games write.
• %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games, used by a smaller but stubborn set of titles.
• The game's own install folder, which is where a surprising number of older titles still save.
• On Linux, ~/.local/share or ~/.config for native games, and inside the Proton prefix — steamapps/compatdata/<AppID>/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/… — for Windows games.
• On macOS, ~/Library/Application Support.

Where the game came from barely matters: GOG, Epic and itch titles land in the same handful of places, because it's the engine and the developer that decide, not the launcher.

For a few popular games there's a page with the exact paths, what's in the folder and the traps to avoid: Cyberpunk 2077, Crimson Desert, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Baldur's Gate 3 and Palworld.

What gets backed up, and what doesn't

A save folder is rarely just saves, so Hoard sorts what it finds into three piles:

• Save data is backed up and restored. This is your progress.
• Files that belong to one machine — configuration, logs, and similar — are uploaded so they're part of the backup, but never written back over another PC's copy. Your graphics settings stay yours.
• Junk — caches, crash dumps, temporary files — is ignored, so a backup doesn't balloon with things you'd never want back.

When a backup happens

Hoard watches the folder and captures it every time the game saves, in the middle of a session too, and once more when you quit. It never grabs a file halfway: it waits until the folder has been quiet for a few seconds, and if the game still has a file open, it waits for that too. Games that save non-stop get a minimum gap between copies, so an evening of play doesn't turn into a hundred versions.

Saves coming from your other machines work the other way round: they wait until you close the game, so your progress never changes under your feet.

Each capture is a version. Snapshots are stored by content hash, so unchanged files are stored once: ten versions of a 2 GB save where little changes between sessions cost about 2 GB, not 20.

And in sync on every machine

A backup already saves you from a corrupted file. If you play on more than one machine, the same backups also give you sync: install Hoard on your other PCs or a Steam Deck with the same account, and Hoard matches each game across them. When you stop playing on one, the newest save is waiting on the next. More in syncing saves across PCs and between Steam Deck and PC.

Backing up without our servers

If you'd rather not use anyone's cloud, run hoard-server yourself and point the app at it. Your saves go from your PC to your disk: no account with us, no telemetry to us, and nothing passing through our servers. See how to self-host Hoard.

Tip: check your history

Open a game's History tab to see every backup with its date and size. From there you can restore any previous version in one click. Your saves travel encrypted, are stored in the EU, and you can export or delete them whenever you want.

Already use a local backup tool like Ludusavi? You can keep it — but if you want those backups to land in the cloud and sync between machines without scripting Rclone yourself, that's exactly what Hoard automates. See Ludusavi vs Hoard for a fair comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Does Hoard back up while I'm playing?

Yes. Every time the game finishes writing a save and the folder goes quiet for a few seconds, Hoard captures it, and once more when you quit. It never uploads a half-written file, and saves from your other machines wait until you close the game.

How much space do my saves need?

Less than you'd think. Versions are deduplicated by content hash, so only what actually changed between sessions takes new space — most save collections sit comfortably in a couple of gigabytes.

What if one of my games isn't detected?

Point Hoard at the folder by hand and it will track it like any other. Detection covers thousands of titles, but a game that saves somewhere unusual, or one you installed by hand, sometimes needs the hint.

Does it back up my mods?

Hoard tracks the save folder, so mods living elsewhere aren't part of the backup. That's deliberate: mods are large, they're re-downloadable, and a mod folder syncing between machines causes more problems than it solves.

Does self-hosting change how backups work?

Barely. Same detection, same automatic capture. The one difference is a default: a self-hosted server thins out old versions over time, which you can switch off in its config.