How to Upload Your Existing World to Your Satisfactory Server

Two ways to move your Satisfactory save to a dedicated server: the in-game Manage Saves uploader, or the panel's File Manager into SaveGames/server/, then load it.

Updated August 16, 2026

Satisfactory

Yes — a Satisfactory world from single-player or a co-op session loads on a dedicated server unchanged. There is one save format and it moves both ways, as long as the server is on the same build and branch as the game that wrote it (an Experimental save will not open on a Stable server). You have two routes: the in-game Server Manager can upload a save directly from your machine (no file wrangling at all), or you copy the .sav onto the server yourself through the panel. Either way, the last step is the same: tell the server to load it.

This guide uses the Console, File Manager and Backups tabs of your Satisfactory game server panel for the manual route, and the in-game Server Manager for the direct one.

One Concept First: Sessions, Not Files

Satisfactory groups saves by the session name written inside the file — not by file name. mygame_autosave_1.sav and mygame_2026-08-16.sav with the same session name are one session to the server, and the server's auto-load setting loads the most recent save of a session. Keep this in mind when your uploaded session shares a name with something already on the server: the two merge into one list, and the newest file wins.

Where Satisfactory Stores Local Saves

%LOCALAPPDATA%\FactoryGame\Saved\SaveGames\<your user id>\

The subfolder is named after your store account ID — a long opaque string, not your username — and it is the same path whether you bought the game on Steam or Epic. If you own it on both you will see two sibling folders. Inside are .sav files, one per save, prefixed with the session name rather than the save name; autosaves rotate through <session>_autosave_0.sav, _1 and _2, with how many kept set by mNumRotatingAutosaves. Sort by date modified to find your latest.

Route A: Upload From Inside the Game (No Files Needed)

Launch Satisfactory and open Server Manager from the main menu, then select your server (add it with Add Server if it isn't listed yet — see getting started).
Open the Manage Saves tab.
Use the tab's upload control, pick the save from your local list, and send it to the server.
Select the uploaded save and Load.

That's the whole route. If it works for you, skip to verifying the load. The manual route below exists for when the in-game uploader misbehaves, for very large saves, or when you're moving files between servers.

Route B: Upload Through the Panel

Step 1: Stop the Server

Click Stop on the Console tab. Copying save files under a running server risks a half-written autosave landing on top of your upload.

The Stop button on the Console tab

Step 2: Upload the .sav

In the File Manager, open the server's save folder. Our docs record it two ways, because it is the same directory seen from two angles: FactoryGame/Saved/SaveGames/server/ is the panel-facing path, and on Linux that resolves under ~/.config/Epic/ — so browse to whichever of the two your File Manager shows at the root.

FactoryGame/Saved/SaveGames/server/

Upload your .sav into it. If the browser upload stalls, SFTP into the same folder resumes interrupted transfers.

Step 3: Load the Save and Verify

Start the server, connect in-game, and open Server Manager → Manage Saves. Your uploaded session appears in the list — select the save and Load. There is no documented console command that loads a save: the handful the server has cover saving, autosave tuning and shutdown, and loading lives in the Server Manager or behind the HTTPS API's LoadGame call.

To make the server come back to this world on every restart, set Auto-Load Session Name to your session in the Server Manager's Settings → Dedicated Server section.

Then verify: the session name, play time and milestone progress in the Server Manager should match your local game. Walk your factory floor before you call it done.

After the Move

Back it up. Take a snapshot through the Backups tab now, so the migrated factory is your restore point. A panel snapshot plus the server's own rotating autosaves is the right pair — the autosaves cover an in-session mistake, the snapshot covers everything else.
Creative Mode travels with the save. What used to be called Advanced Game Settings was renamed Creative Mode in Update 1.2, and it is a flag in the save file's own header rather than a server setting. A local world that had it enabled arrives with it enabled, silently, and it cannot be turned back off — achievements stay disabled for that world permanently. The individual toggles inside it remain adjustable; only the initial opt-in is one-way.

Common Issues

The uploaded save isn't in Manage Saves: It landed in the wrong folder. It must be inside the server/ subfolder, not SaveGames/ itself — SaveGames/ also holds blueprints/ and the ServerSettings.<PORT>.sav file, and neither is a save game.
The server loaded an older version of my world: Session-name collision. The server auto-loads the newest save of the session, and an existing autosave postdated your upload. Load your save explicitly from Manage Saves, or clear the stale session first — carefully: deleting a session is a different action from deleting a save file, and it removes every save belonging to that session.
Progress loads but mods are missing: Mods are not inside the save. The server needs the same mods installed — see How to install mods for Satisfactory.
Loading takes minutes: Normal for a late-game factory. One to three minutes to deserialize a large save is expected; watch the Console rather than restarting.