How to copy game saves

What a drama! You’ve just launched your favorite PC game and realized that all your saves have disappeared into thin air. What to say? Really a bad thing to peel. The save files have become corrupted and you will now be forced to restart your favorite game from the beginning. But fear not, it won’t happen again! How do I know? Simple, because I’m about to tell you how to copy your  computer game saves in such a way that you can make a nice backup of them. Great, right?

So take a few minutes of free time all for yourself and immediately start concentrating on reading this tutorial of mine entirely focused on the subject. To succeed in the enterprise, I anticipate it immediately, you just need to take advantage of some PC programs capable of fulfilling precisely the function in question. They are very easy to use even by those who, a bit like you, do not consider themselves exactly a great expert in IT and new technologies, you have my word. Plus, they’re all free.

Then? May I know what are you still doing standing there? Position yourself comfortably in front of your trusted computer and follow the instructions below. In the end, I have no doubts, you will be able to tell yourself very happy and satisfied with what you have learned. Ah, I almost forgot: for the sake of completeness of information, at the end of the article you will also find a passage focused on how to make a “manual” backup of your saves, useful if you prefer to avoid installing new programs on your computer, Windows or Mac that is. But now just chat and let’s take action. I wish you, as usual, happy reading and I wish you a big good luck for everything.

Index

• GameSave Manager
• MASGAU
• Savegame Manager
• Copy game saves “manually”

GameSave Manager

The first of the useful resources for copying game saves I want to tell you about is  GameSave Manager . It is a free and portable program for Windows (it does not require installation to work), which, in fact, allows you to save PC game saves with a simple click. Install it and you will finally be able to create backups of the backups of all your favorite videogames, having the possibility to restore them at any time and on any computer. Let’s see in more detail how it works.

The first step you need to take is to connect to the GameSave Manager website and click on the Get it now button   in the center of the displayed page, in order to download the program on your PC. Once the download is complete, extract the compressed archive you just obtained from any location on your computer and start the .exe file contained within it to start the GameSave Manager installation process.

In the window that opens, click on the Yes button , select Italian from the drop-down menu for choosing the language in the window you see appear on the desktop and then click OK and Close . Wait a few moments for the system scan procedure to start and complete for games, after which you will find yourself in front of the main program window.

Now, to save the PC game saves, click on the Run Backup item  that you find under the heading Backup… , then select the games you want to copy the saves from and click on the button to start the backup procedure. Then specify the folder in which you want to save the backup file generated by GameSave Manager, assign a name to it and click on the button to start the saving procedure.

If you want, you can also schedule the backup to run by clicking on the Scheduled Operations item in the main program window and then on Add . Then follow the wizard that is proposed to you on the screen by entering the name you want to assign to the operation, specifying which elements you want to back up, the frequency and location of the save by always clicking on Next and then pressing on Finish .

I would also like to point out the possibility of taking advantage of the function called GamePlay Backup , which can always be selected from the main window of the software, to automatically backup the games in use every 2 minutes.

When you need it, you can restore a backup created previously with GameSave Manager by clicking on the Open Archive item  corresponding to the word Restore … in the main program screen, selecting the backup file with the game saves to restore, indicating the name of the reference videogame and pressing the button to start the procedure.

If, on the other hand, you want to customize the program settings, for example, defining the use of any cloud storage service to make a further saving of the games and other settings related to backups, select the item General Settings that you find under the heading Customize … always in the main GameSave Manager window and act on the various items and options on the screen as you think is most appropriate.

MASGAU

As an alternative to the above program, you can rely on MASGAU to copy your game saves. It is in fact another free software for Windows operating systems belonging to the category in question. It is essentially a save manager that uses the .xml format for immediate editing. Its advantage is that you don’t have to wait for biblical times for databases to load and you can also manually add any extra items to the library. In short, try it now and you will see that you will not regret it.

To use it, first connect to the download page of the program and click on the Download vxxx Installer for Windows (Desktop AND Portable!) Link  . When the download is complete, open the .exe file obtained and click OK . Then click on Next , select the item I accept the agreement and click on Next again four times in a row, then on Install and finally on Finish .

Now, start the program by calling it from the Start menu and once the MASGAU window is displayed on the desktop you will find yourself in front of the complete list of games on your PC. If the list is incomplete or the games do not appear, press the Refresh Games button at the top left to update it. To manually add games to be backed up, click on the Add button at the top left and follow the wizard proposed on the screen.

Therefore, proceed to back up the video games by checking the box next to the name of the games in relation to which you intend to go to act and pressing the Backup All Games button at the top. Then select the save destination location and click OK . Et voila !

You can then restore your backups by pressing the Restore Other … button at the top of the program window, selecting the backup file on your computer, waiting a few moments for the loading procedure to be started and completed and clicking on the Restore button . If you want to change the destination folder before restoring, press Other Location … and select it from the window that appears. At the end of the procedure click on Close .

Finally, I would like to point out the possibility of further customizing the operation of the program by accessing the Settings tab at the top of the MASGAU window and adjusting, according to your needs and preferences, the items always located at the top of the screen.

Savegame Manager

Another software belonging to the category in question to which you can appeal to copy the saves of your games in order to create a backup copy of them is Savegame Manager . It is a free program for Windows that checks the hard disk of your computer for any saved video games and stores them in a special folder. It also allows you to save online games so that you can retrieve them from any location and possibly share them with other users.

You ask me how to use the program? I’ll point it out to you right away. First of all, connected to the download page on the Softpedia website and click on the Download button at the top left, then press the Softpedia Secure download (US ) button in the new window that opens and wait for the download procedure to start and completed.

When the download is complete, open the .exe file obtained and click on Yes . Now that you see the program window on your desktop, press the Get list button on the left to view the complete list of games on your computer and wait a few moments for the hard drive scan procedure to start and complete.

Then select the names of the games you want to backup and press the Save button at the bottom. The backup of the games will be saved in the folder indicated in the upper right part of the Savegame Manager window, corresponding to the wording Save destination: (if you cannot see it, first press the button with the gear at the top). When you deem it appropriate, you can restore the backup made by pressing the Restore button at the bottom right.

Is the game you want to back up not in the list automatically generated by the program? Then select the Lost Paths tab . which is at the top of the Savegame Manager window, type the name of the game in the field under the heading Game Name: at the bottom left, press the Add button , indicate the reference position on the computer and that’s it.

As for the possibility of archiving online game saves, just click on the icons of the reference cloud storage services at the top of the screen and follow the wizard that is proposed to you. If, on the other hand, you want to make changes to the program settings (e.g. decide whether to start the software when Windows starts, whether to also consider Steam games or not, etc.), use the items and menus that you find on the right side of the screen of the same.

Copy the saves “manually”

Don’t you feel like using the above software and would you prefer to copy your game saves in a manual way, so to speak? It can be done, of course. To do this, you just need to locate the folder on your computer where the various game save files are stored and copy it to the location where you intend to back up or, possibly, to an external disk, a pendrive or a CD. /DVD.

The location where progress files are saved for games in progress is not the same for all games, this is good to keep in mind. However, on Windows it is usually possible to find the save files in correspondence with the paths indicated below, bearing in mind, however, that some save data are also stored in the system registry .

• C: \ Users \ Username \ Saved Games \ Game Name
• C: \ Users \ Username \ Documents \ Game Name
• C: \ Users \ Username \ Documents \ Games \ Game Name
• C: \ Users \ Username \ AppData \ Roaming \ Game name
• C: \ Users \ Username \ AppData \ Local \ Game name
• C: \ Program Files \ Game Name
• C: \ ProgramData \ Game name
• C: \ Program Files \ Steam \ steamapps \ common \ Game name
• C: \ Program Files \ Steam \ Username \ Game Name

As for the Mac side , in most cases it is possible to access the save games of the various games by clicking on the Go item in the menu bar, pressing the alt key on the keyboard and, continuing to hold, then selecting Libreia from the menu that has opened. In the Finder window displayed on the screen you will then have to select the Applications Support folder and then the one with the name of the reference game . The saves should therefore be inside the new open folder.

In any case, in order not to make mistakes and to avoid running into unnecessary waste of time, the suggestion I would like to give you is to carry out a search on Google using keywords such as “name game position save” . Then consult the various results available in order to be able to learn more. By doing so, you could run into Internet sites dedicated to videogames and forums of enthusiasts where the topic is discussed in depth. You can also take a look at the Save Game Location Wiki , an Internet site where you can find a lot of information of this type.