Restore a Valheim World Backup on a Dedicated Server

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Lost progress on your Valheim server? Where 1.0 keeps worlds and backups, how to restore one with the server stopped, and why characters stay as they are.

Two Vikings resting at a campfire in a dark Valheim forest

Your group logs in and part of the base is gone, a chest is empty, or a crash took last night's work with it. The server's backups can usually bring the world back, as long as you stop the server before newer backups push out the good ones. This guide shows where a Valheim 1.0 dedicated server keeps the world and its backups, how to restore each kind of copy with the server stopped, and why a world restore never touches anyone's character.

Quick answer: Stop the server and copy its whole save folder before you change anything. Since Valheim 1.0 a world is a folder named after the world inside worlds_local, and the server keeps four automatic backups by default, one 2 hours old and three 12 hours apart (-backups, -backupshort, -backuplong). To restore your own copy, swap the world folder for it. To restore one of the server's backups, copy worlds_local to a PC, pick the backup in Valheim's Manage saves menu and upload the restored world folder. Characters are saved on each player's PC, so a restore never rolls back inventories or skills.

What a World Restore Brings Back

Valheim saves the world on the server and each character on the player's own computer. Iron Gate's 0.217.14 notes put it as "saving of world on server and character on client", and since patch 0.209.8 local characters sit in a characters_local folder on the player's PC, or in Steam Cloud.

So a world backup brings back terrain, buildings, chests and their contents, items on stands and anything lying on the ground. It does not touch what players carry, wear or have learned. Tell your group before you restore:

  • Anything built or stored after the backup time is gone.
  • Items taken out of a chest after the backup time are now in someone's inventory and back in the chest.
  • A tombstone from a later death is not in the restored world, so have its owner collect it first if the world still loads.

Where the Server Keeps the World and Its Backups

ServerWorlds folder
Linux, default~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local in the home folder of the user that runs the server
Windows, default%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local
Started with -savedirworlds_local inside that folder, such as /home/valheim/data/worlds_local in our setup guide

Iron Gate's server guide gives both default paths and says -savedir "Overrides the default save path where Worlds and permission-files are stored". The server only uses the local folder, never Steam Cloud (patch 0.209.8), and the admin, ban and permitted lists sit in the save folder itself, so swapping a world folder leaves them alone.

Since 1.0 each world is a folder in worlds_local, named after the world and split into many chunk files instead of the old .db and .fwl pair. Iron Gate's notes on the new save system say backups get separate folders too, and the Valheim Wiki says every file in a world's folder is needed to back it up or move it. Never pick single files out of a world folder.

The automatic backups follow four launch options from Iron Gate's guide:

FlagDefaultWhat it sets
-saveinterval1800 (30 minutes)How often the world saves, in seconds
-backups4How many automatic backups the server keeps
-backupshort7200 (2 hours)The interval for the first automatic backup
-backuplong43200 (12 hours)The interval between the later ones

Iron Gate sums up the defaults as "one backup that is 2 hours old, and 3 backups that are 12 hours apart." The server keeps a fixed number, so while it runs, newer backups replace older ones. If the damage happened yesterday, the good backups are the old ones: stop the server first.

Pick the Right Restore

What you haveWhat to do
A copy of the world folder you made yourselfSwap it in on the server
Only the server's automatic backupsRestore one in Manage saves on a PC and upload the world folder
A .db and .fwl pair from before 1.0Put the pair in worlds_local; the server converts it
A few lost items in a world that is otherwise fineOpen a restored copy separately and carry the items over

First: Stop the Server and Copy Everything

Ask everyone to log out, then stop the server properly so it writes the world before it exits. Iron Gate's guide says to stop it with Ctrl+C in its window and warns that closing the window with the X may leave it running. On Linux, systemctl stop sends SIGTERM by default, which the Valheim Wiki lists as a correct shutdown. Killing the process loses everything since the last save.

The commands match our setup guide: a valheim service, -savedir /home/valheim/data and a world called Dedicated. Without -savedir, the save folder is /home/valheim/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim.

sudo systemctl stop valheim
pgrep -a valheim_server || echo "server stopped"

sudo du -sh /home/valheim/data
df -h /home
sudo cp -a /home/valheim/data /home/valheim/data-before-restore-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)

That copy holds the damaged world and every server backup as they are now, so nothing you do next can make things worse. Keep copies outside worlds_local, and keep world names to letters and numbers: since 1.0.21 the game cleans up world and character files with invalid names, such as Iron Gate's example "i<3".

On a rented server, stop it in the panel and copy the files with the file manager or FTP. Our Valheim hosting gives you full FTP access to the worlds folder for this.

Restore Your Own Copy of the World Folder

If you have a copy of the world folder from before the damage, here in /home/valheim/backups/Dedicated, swap it in:

sudo mv /home/valheim/data/worlds_local/Dedicated /home/valheim/Dedicated-damaged-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)
sudo cp -a /home/valheim/backups/Dedicated /home/valheim/data/worlds_local/
sudo chown -R valheim:valheim /home/valheim/data/worlds_local/Dedicated
sudo systemctl start valheim

If your copy is a tar archive from the commands at the end of this guide, run this instead of the cp line:

sudo tar -xzf /home/valheim/backups/Dedicated-20261030-0500.tar.gz -C /home/valheim/data/worlds_local

The folder name must match -world exactly, with the same capitals. Iron Gate's guide says -world loads an existing world by its name or creates a new one, so a typo gives you a fresh random world. If your copy has another name, change -world rather than renaming the folder.

Restore a Dedicated Server Backup With Manage Saves

Iron Gate's server guide has no restore steps. The restores in its patch notes run through Valheim's Manage saves menu, added in 0.211.7 to restore and remove saves and backups, and still there in 1.0 (patch 1.0.16 fixed restoring through it on the Mac App Store). A 1.0 world is many files, so let the game do the swap on a PC:

  1. With the server stopped, download its whole worlds_local folder. With SSH access, from PowerShell: scp -r valheim@203.0.113.10:/home/valheim/data/worlds_local "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\server-worlds". An SFTP client or your host's file manager works too. Leave the server stopped until step 5, or your players build on the damaged world and lose that work again.
  2. Close Valheim and open %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local. If one of your own worlds has the same name, copy it somewhere safe and move it out. Copy everything inside server-worlds into the folder. Run Valheim 1.0.21 or newer, which fixed a save caching problem with worlds changed outside the game.
  3. Start Valheim, click Start Game, pick a character and click Manage saves in the world list. Expand your world's backup list, select the newest backup from before the damage (each one shows its date and time) and click Restore.
  4. Close Valheim and upload the restored world folder: scp -r "$env:USERPROFILE\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local\Dedicated" valheim@203.0.113.10:/home/valheim/Dedicated-restored
  5. On the server, swap it in and start:
sudo mv /home/valheim/data/worlds_local/Dedicated /home/valheim/Dedicated-damaged-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)
sudo mv /home/valheim/Dedicated-restored /home/valheim/data/worlds_local/Dedicated
sudo chown -R valheim:valheim /home/valheim/data/worlds_local/Dedicated
sudo systemctl start valheim

Restoring does not use up a backup (patch 0.215.2), so if your first pick is too late, try an older one. If an update caused the damage, pick the backup Valheim made when the world first loaded in the new version (patch 0.216.9). In Iron Gate's example in the 0.219.13 notes it is named worldname_backup-timestamp, without auto.

If the server runs on your own Windows PC under your account, without -savedir, it already uses this folder: stop it with Ctrl+C, make the safety copy, restore in Manage saves and start it again. The wiki warns against running the game and the server on one world at the same time.

Get Your Team's Things Back Without a Rollback

When the world is fine but a chest or a cart load went missing, you don't need to roll everyone back. Iron Gate's 1.0.15 notes give the method: open a copy of a backup, put the items on your character and carry them back to the main world. Follow steps 1 to 3 above, skip the upload and start the server again. Host the restored copy from your own game, let the players who lost things join and pick them up, then everyone returns to the dedicated server with the items in their inventory.

Restore a World From Before 1.0

A world saved before Valheim 1.0 (9 September 2026) is two files, such as Dedicated.db and Dedicated.fwl. Stop the server, move any folder with the same name out of worlds_local, put both files in and start the server with -world set to that name. Iron Gate's 1.0 FAQ says old saves keep working, and its save system notes say the game makes a backup before it converts an old world. A conversion bug that stripped levels and variants from items on item stands and armour stands was fixed in 1.0.12, so a pair converted now keeps them. Our 1.0 server guide covers worlds converted before that fix.

Check the Restored World

Join and check the damaged spot: it should look as it did at the backup time, and anything built later should be gone. Then wait for the first save, up to 30 minutes with the default interval. The Valheim Wiki lists World saved as the line the server prints when it saves, and the newest one should be later than your restart:

journalctl -u valheim --since today --no-pager | grep -i "world saved" | tail -n 3

If objects vanish again in the same area, check the server version first: patch 1.0.17 fixed a rare bug that could erase all objects in parts of a world when a large world save chunk file was split into smaller ones, and our incompatible version guide shows how to read the installed build. If a mod went in just before the damage, take it out before your group plays again; our Thunderstore mods guide shows how to add mods in small batches and test them on a copy of the world first.

Make the Next Restore Lose Less

Add the flags to the server line of your start script, then restart the service. On Windows they go on the start valheim_server line of start_headless_server.bat.

exec ./valheim_server.x86_64 \
  -name "Your Server Name" \
  -port 2456 \
  -world "Dedicated" \
  -password "your_password" \
  -savedir /home/valheim/data \
  -public 1 \
  -saveinterval 900 \
  -backups 6 \
  -backupshort 3600 \
  -backuplong 21600

That saves every 15 minutes and keeps six backups, the first one hour old and the rest six hours apart. Each save briefly holds up the server (the wiki says traffic pauses for about 20 to 300 ms while the world is copied in memory), and each backup takes disk space, so check df -h after a day.

The server's backups sit on the same disk as the world, so keep your own copies too, made with the server stopped, for example before an update or a new mod:

sudo systemctl stop valheim
sudo mkdir -p /home/valheim/backups
sudo tar -czf /home/valheim/backups/Dedicated-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).tar.gz -C /home/valheim/data/worlds_local Dedicated
sudo systemctl start valheim

Then download the archive to another machine, so a failed disk or a deleted server does not take every copy with it.

FAQ

How do I restore a backup on a Valheim dedicated server? Stop the server and copy the whole save folder. Then swap in your own copy of the world folder, or restore one of the server's backups in Valheim's Manage saves menu on a PC and upload the result.

Where does a Valheim dedicated server store its backups? In its save folder, ~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim on Linux unless -savedir points elsewhere, in folders of their own since 1.0. Copy the whole save folder and you have all of them.

How often does a Valheim dedicated server back up the world? By default it saves every 30 minutes and keeps four backups: one 2 hours old and three 12 hours apart. Change that with -saveinterval, -backups, -backupshort and -backuplong.

Can we get our team's things back without rolling back the world? Yes. Restore a backup on a PC, host that copy from your own game, let the players pick up their items and go back to the server. Characters carry their inventory between worlds.

Why does one player keep losing progress on our dedicated server? Their character is saved by their own game on their PC, so the server has no copy of it. Have them update Valheim: 1.0.14 fixed characters not saving correctly when pressing Save on a server hosted by someone else. They should also check that no security software blocks the save folder, which the Valheim Wiki names as a cause, and keep a copy of characters_local.

Does restoring a world backup reset our characters? No. Skills, gear and inventories stay as they are, because they are stored on each player's PC. Only the world goes back.

Sources

All opened on 31 October 2026: