--- title: "How to Upload Your Existing World to Your Valheim Server" description: "Move your local Valheim world to a dedicated server: find the .db and .fwl pair in worlds_local, upload both files, and set the World Name to match." url: "https://www.gameserverkings.com/knowledge-base/valheim/upload-your-existing-world/" category: "Valheim" category_url: "https://www.gameserverkings.com/knowledge-base/valheim/" published: "2026-08-16T10:55:09.072Z" updated: "2026-09-11T22:54:16.425Z" source_format: "markdown" site: "GameServerKings" --- # How to Upload Your Existing World to Your Valheim Server Yes — the world you started in singleplayer or hosted co-op moves straight onto a dedicated server. Since Valheim 1.0 a world is a **folder** named after the world, and the server loads whichever folder matches its **World Name** setting. You need that folder from your PC, about five minutes, and a server you can stop and start. Everything below happens in two tabs of your [Valheim game server](/games/valheim/) panel: the **File Manager** for the upload and the **Startup** tab for the world name. Your characters are not part of the move — Valheim stores them on each player's own machine, so everyone keeps their skills and inventory automatically. ## Where Valheim Stores Local Worlds > [!NOTE] Looking for the paths rather than the move? > [Valheim Save Location and the 1.0 World Folder Format](/knowledge-base/valheim/valheim-save-location/) is the full reference — every platform path, what each file inside a world folder does, and how pre-1.0 worlds convert. This page is the migration walkthrough. | Platform | Path | |---|---| | Windows (Steam) | `%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local\` | | Linux | `~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/` | Valheim has had a native macOS build since June 2024, on both Steam and the Mac App Store, but the two store it differently — the Steam build under `~/Library/Application Support/`, the sandboxed App Store build under `~/Library/Containers/`. Iron Gate document the Windows and Linux paths and not the Mac one, and the guides that fill the gap disagree with each other, so use Finder's **Go → Go to Folder…** and search for `worlds_local` rather than trusting a path you were given. Worlds created before 20 June 2022 (patch 0.209.8) may still sit in the older `worlds\` folder next to `worlds_local\`. That patch moved local saves into `worlds_local` and `characters_local` so they would stop syncing to Steam Cloud, and a legacy world migrates across the first time you load and save it — so if a world is still in `worlds\`, open it once in game and it will move itself. Xbox and Microsoft Store (Game Pass) saves are not loose files at all — they live in an opaque WGS container of GUID-named blobs under `%LocalAppData%\Packages\`, so there is no world folder to copy by hand. > [!NOTE] Playing through Steam Cloud? > If Steam Cloud sync is on, your newest world may exist only in `Steam\userdata\\892970\remote` rather than `worlds_local`. Select the world in the world list and use **Move to Local** first, then copy it out of `worlds_local`. (The **Manage Saves** screen is the backup restore-and-delete menu — a different thing.) ## Step 1: Find Your World's Folder Open `worlds_local` and find the folder named after your world — for a world called `Midgard`, that is `worlds_local/Midgard/`. Since Valheim 1.0 the world lives inside that folder as several files rather than as a single `.db`/`.fwl` pair. Inspected on a freshly generated 1.0 server, the folder contains: | File | What it is | |---|---| | `_main.N.fwl2` | The metadata — seed, world name, generator version. Replaces the old `.fwl` | | `_main.N.db2` | The world data. Replaces the old `.db` | | `_main.N.chunks` | The chunk index | | `NN_NN__N_N.chunk` | The world data itself, split into chunks. There will be many on a played-in world | | `_main.N.ok` | A marker Valheim writes last, which is how a save survives being interrupted | `N` is a generation counter that increments each time the world saves, so the exact numbers on your world will differ. > [!IMPORTANT] Move the whole folder, never files out of it > The files reference each other, and the `.ok` marker is what tells Valheim the save is complete. Copying a subset produces a world that either refuses to load or loads as an older state. Treat the folder as the unit. > [!NOTE] Still have a `.db` and `.fwl` pair? > That is a pre-1.0 world and it still works. Copy the pair across as-is and Valheim converts it to a folder the first time it loads it, taking a backup before it does. You do not need to convert anything by hand. ## Step 2: Stop the Server Click **Stop** on the Console tab and wait for the process to exit. Uploading world files into a running server risks the server's own save cycle overwriting them mid-copy. ![The Stop button on the Console tab]() ## Step 3: Upload the World Folder In the **File Manager**, open `.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/`. Valheim uses the same default path on your server as it does on a stock Linux install — our startup does not pass `-savedir` — so `worlds_local/` sits inside `.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/`, alongside `adminlist.txt`, and **not** in the server root. Upload the whole world folder. For worlds over a few hundred MB, [SFTP](/knowledge-base/general/how-to-upload-files-via-sftp/) is faster and resumes interrupted transfers, and it handles a directory of many small chunk files better than a browser upload does; the target folder is the same. Do not rename the folder or anything inside it. The folder name is the world's identity, and the server matches it exactly — on Linux, capitalisation included. ## Step 4: Set the World Name Open the **Startup** tab and find **World File Name**. Set it to your world's base name — `Midgard`, not `Midgard.db`. This is Valheim's `-world` launch argument: the server loads the matching pair from `worlds_local`, and if nothing matches it generates a brand-new world under that name, which is the failure you are trying to avoid. The [full Startup field reference](/knowledge-base/valheim/configuration-overview/) covers the rest. ![The World File Name field on the Startup tab, set to Midgard]() ## Step 5: Start and Verify Hit **Start** and watch the Console for the server to come up with your world's name in the boot output. Then join in-game: the real check is the world itself — your spawn point, a landmark you built, the day counter on the sleep screen. Take a snapshot through the **Backups** tab once the world is confirmed live, so the freshly migrated state is the thing you can roll back to. See [How to create a backup](/knowledge-base/general/how-to-create-a-backup/). ## Common Issues - **The server generated a new empty world**: The **World Name** does not exactly match the uploaded folder's name, or the folder is incomplete. Check spelling and capitalisation against the File Manager listing. - **My newest progress is missing**: Steam Cloud was holding a newer copy than `worlds_local`. Use **Move to Local** on the world in game, then re-upload the folder. - **World loads but my character is level 1**: Characters never live on the server. Each player's character travels with their own client (`characters_local` on their PC) — the player who "lost" a character is signed into a different machine or Steam account. - **The world was fine, then rolled back**: Valheim keeps previous save generations and falls back to one when the current save will not read, so a bad shutdown can surface an older state. Restore your own latest snapshot from the **Backups** tab rather than re-uploading over it. - **Server and client versions differ**: A world saved on a newer game build will not load on an older server. Keep automatic updates on, and make sure your own game is not on a beta branch. > [!NOTE] The save format changed at 1.0, and this is what changed > The rewritten save system that sat on the public test branch through 2026 shipped with **Valheim 1.0 on 9 September 2026**. Iron Gate's 1.0 patch notes describe it as a "New save system: Splits world data across chunks to reduce how much data is serialized and written to improve performance, and is designed to be resilient against mid-write failures", and the earlier 0.221.13 notes spell out the mechanism: "Worlds will no longer be saved with a .db and a .fwl file, but will instead be saved and stored in separate folders, with the .db file broken down into smaller pieces." > > In practice: only the chunks that changed get rewritten on each save, backups get folders of their own, and the `_main.N.ok` marker is what makes an interrupted save recoverable. Pre-1.0 worlds are converted on first load, after an automatic backup. If you are following an older guide that tells you to copy a `.db` and a `.fwl`, it predates 1.0. ## What to Read Next - [Valheim Server Settings and Launch Arguments](/knowledge-base/valheim/configuration-overview/) for the rest of the Startup tab, including the wipe procedure - [Managing your Valheim server](/knowledge-base/valheim/managing-your-valheim-server/) for scheduled restarts and the backup routine that protects the world you just moved - [How to install mods for your Valheim server](/knowledge-base/valheim/how-to-install-mods/) if your co-op group played modded — the server needs the same BepInEx setup - [Best Valheim Server Mods That Work After 1.0](/knowledge-base/valheim/best-valheim-server-mods/) to check whether those mods have been rebuilt since the update before you bring the world across --- Made with 💜 by GameServerKings