Palworld backups: move your world without losing anything

Your Palworld world lives on the server in Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/, inside a folder with a long, random-looking name. That folder holds the world data, the guild data and a Players subfolder containing one .sav file per player. A backup only counts if you take that entire folder while the server is shut down: copy just the world file and your players will log back in as brand-new level 1 characters, with no Pals and no guild.

Where does your world live and what is in the save folder?

On a Linux server everything sits under Pal/Saved/. Two parts matter: SaveGames with the world itself, and Config/LinuxServer/ with PalWorldSettings.ini, which holds your server's roughly 119 settings. They belong together. Restore the world but not your settings and everything reverts to defaults: ExpRate back to standard and PalEggDefaultHatchingTime at 72 hours, when you had probably set those to 2 to 3 and 5 to 10.

Guild data does not sit in a file of its own but inside the world itself, tied to the player IDs from the Players folder. Separate those two and you are left with two half backups. If you are still working on the basic setup, start with how to host your own Palworld server.

Why are Palworld saves so big and so fragile?

Palworld keeps almost everything permanently. Every wall segment, every chest with its contents, every Pal with its stats and passives goes into the world. A guild with three built-up bases and a full Palbox therefore produces far more data than a week-old world, and a save rarely gets smaller.

It is fragile because the world is one large binary file: a half-written Level.sav is not partly damaged, it is usually completely unusable. That risk is higher still on a server that runs for days on end, because the server process's memory usage climbs the longer it stays up. What helps is a scheduled restart, every 6 to 12 hours; the reasoning behind that is in our explanation of the Palworld memory leak. More fine-tuning can be found in our general Palworld hosting tips.

How do you take a manual backup?

Shut the server down first. A running server keeps the world in memory and writes it out periodically; copy during one of those writes and you get a file that looks perfectly normal and only turns out to be unusable when you actually need it. The same rule applies to PalWorldSettings.ini: edit it while the server is running and your changes get overwritten on restart.

1. Stop the server from the panel and wait until it shows as stopped. Not a restart, a real stop.
2. Open the file manager and go to Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/.
3. Select the whole world folder with that long name, not just the files inside it. Players has to come along.
4. Turn it into an archive with the date in the name, for example world-2026-08-05.zip.
5. Copy Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini as well and keep it with the archive.
6. Download the archive to your PC or cloud folder. A backup that only exists on the server is not a backup.
7. Start the server and check that players can get in.

Keep at least three versions: the latest, one from a few days ago and one from before the last game update. Damage often only shows up days later.

How do you restore a backup?

1. Stop the server completely.
2. Rename the existing world folder rather than deleting it, for example by adding -broken to the end.
3. Upload your archive to Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/ and extract it there.
4. Check that the extracted folder has exactly the name the server expects, and that Players is inside it.
5. Put your saved PalWorldSettings.ini back into Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/.
6. Start the server and log in yourself. Check your level, Pals and base before you let anyone else on.
7. Only once everything works should you delete the renamed folder.

How do you move your world to another host or a bigger plan?

A migration is just a backup you restore on a different machine. The pitfalls are all in the details.

1. Shut the old server down and take a fresh backup of the entire world folder, including Players.
2. On the new server, boot a world once so the folder structure exists, then stop it again.
3. Rename the new, empty world folder and put yours in its place.
4. Check that both servers run the same game version. A save from a newer version on older server software will not load reliably.
5. Restore your old PalWorldSettings.ini, but update the address, port and server name.
6. Start up, log in with your own account and check your level, Pals, base and guild.
7. Keep the old backup until everyone has confirmed their character is intact.

The classic mistake happens at step 1: taking only the loose files from the world folder and leaving the Players folder behind. The world loads fine and the bases are all there, but everyone who logs in gets a fresh level 1 character and loses their guild along with their player ID. It usually goes unnoticed until the second player joins, by which point the world has been running for hours with new data written to it.

Why isn't an automatic backup enough on its own?

Automatic backups are excellent, but they prove nothing until you have restored one. The typical surprises: the schedule skipped the config folder, the copy was taken while the server was mid-write, or the retention window is shorter than the time it takes you to notice the problem. Test it once: restore yesterday's backup, check that your character is intact, then put the current world back.

Keep an eye on your storage too. A growing world plus a stack of archives on the same disk fills up faster than you would expect, and a full disk damages saves in turn. If the server feels sluggish after a restore, first read up on what TPS, MSPT, FPS and ping (your delay to the server) actually mean.

Which plan suits your world?

Pocketpair officially recommends 16 GB of RAM for a dedicated server; 8 GB will start, but Pocketpair itself flags that configuration as crash-prone. At MC-Node the price is a flat EUR 1.50 per GB of RAM and you get 1.25 GB of NVMe per GB of RAM, which determines how many archives you can park next to your world.

Playing with three friends? You do not need 32 GB; Depresso with 16 GB is already generous. Above roughly 24 players you get stutters regardless, and that is a limit of the game engine, not of your hardware. MC-Node Palworld hosting includes automatic backups as standard, along with NVMe storage, DDoS protection and the Pterodactyl panel with its own file manager. In that panel you set the scheduled restarts that keep the memory leak manageable, and download or restore a world folder in a few clicks. You choose from four locations, including our own data centre Previder PDC2 in Hengelo.

Frequently asked questions

Can I take a backup without stopping the server? You can, but you will not know whether the file is complete. The server writes the world out periodically; copy in the middle of one of those writes and you get a Level.sav that only turns out to be broken when you need it. Stop the server first, then copy.

Why did my players lose their characters after a migration? Almost always because the Players folder did not come along. It holds one .sav file per player, named after their player ID; without that file the server creates a fresh level 1 character. Since guild membership hangs off that player ID, access to the guild base disappears too.

Should I keep my settings file separately? Yes. On a Linux server PalWorldSettings.ini lives in Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/, so outside the save folder. Restore only the world and all roughly 119 settings revert to their defaults, including PalEggDefaultHatchingTime at 72 hours.

Will my world still work for console players after a migration? Yes. Since version 0.5.0 of 19 March 2025, Steam, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and Mac all share the same world, and it works the same way on a dedicated server. Mods are PC-only, so a modded world does not suit a mixed group.

How often should I take a backup? For an active group, daily is a sensible baseline, plus a manual backup right before a game update or a change to your settings. Keep at least three versions and actually restore one at least once: a backup you have never tested is an assumption, not a certainty.

Further reading

• Palworld server: fixing lag, rubber-banding and stuttering
• Which Palworld server plan suits your group? 4 to 32 GB
• How Much RAM Does a Palworld Server Need? 8, 16 or 32 GB