How to Restore a Backup on Your Valheim Server

Published June 9, 2026 · By Host Havoc Technical Support Team

Since Valheim 1.0, a world is a folder rather than a pair of files, and the server's automatic backups are folders too. A restore always moves a whole folder. Renaming or copying individual files inside one produces a world that won't load or regenerates terrain.

Before you start: Stop your server. A running server keeps writing to the world you're trying to replace.

How backups are stored

Everything lives in worlds_local. For the default world name, savegame, you'll see:

  • savegame/: the live world. It holds one or more numbered sets of _main.N.fwl2, _main.N.db2, _main.N.chunks and _main.N.ok, plus one .chunk file per piece of terrain. N goes up on every save, and the server loads the highest set that has an .ok file.
  • savegame_backup_auto-20260912-173107/: an automatic backup, named with the date, a dash, then the time. Each one is a complete world.

With the default launch settings the server saves every 30 minutes, takes its first backup 2 hours after starting, then one every 12 hours, and keeps 4. The newest backup is at most 12 hours old.

If your world name is custom, the folders use that name instead of savegame.

Method 1: Restore Backup

  1. Log into the Game Control Panel and stop your server.
  2. Click the Restore Backup icon in your server's control panel.
  3. Select a backup from the dropdown menu.
  4. Click Run.
  5. Start the server.

This restores the full worlds_local folder, so the world folder and every chunk file inside it come back together.

Method 2: Rename the backup folder

Use this to pick a specific automatic backup by date.

  1. Log into the Game Control Panel and stop your server.
  2. Click File Manager and open the worlds_local folder.
  3. Rename the current world folder, for example savegame to savegame_broken.
  4. Find the automatic backup you want, for example savegame_backup_auto-20260912-173107.
  5. Rename that folder to the world name, for example savegame.
  6. Start the server and open the Web Console. Wait for the Load world line to confirm the world loaded.
  7. Once players confirm the world is right, delete savegame_broken or leave it as a spare copy.

Do not open a backup folder and rename or delete files inside it, and do not copy _main files from one folder into another. The four _main.N files and the .chunk files belong together as one set.

Worlds created before 1.0

A world that existed before 1.0 was converted to the folder format the first time it saved on 1.0. The conversion leaves the old files where they were, so worlds_local also contains:

  • savegame.db and savegame.fwl: the last pre-1.0 save, plus the usual .db.old and .fwl.old copies.
  • savegame_backup_20260909-134827.db and .fwl: a safety copy the game took just before converting. There's no auto in the name.
  • Any pre-1.0 automatic backups, still as flat .db and .fwl pairs.

All of these are the world as it was before its first 1.0 save. Restoring one puts your group back to that day.

If that's what you want (Iron Gate's 1.0.12 notes point at this copy for items that lost their upgrade level on armour and item stands):

  1. Stop the server.
  2. In File Manager, rename the savegame folder to savegame_1-0.
  3. Make sure savegame.db and savegame.fwl are the pair you want to load. To use the dated safety copy instead, rename both of its files to savegame.db and savegame.fwl. Never restore a .db without its matching .fwl.
  4. Start the server. It converts the pair to a new savegame folder on the first save.

Characters

Player characters are stored on each player's own PC or console, not on the server. A world restore brings back terrain, buildings and chest contents; it doesn't change anyone's inventory or skills.

Troubleshooting

The console says Check backups! on startup. The server couldn't read the current world set. Stop it and use Method 1, or Method 2 with the newest _backup_auto- folder.

The server starts an empty new world. The World Name in the Command Line Manager doesn't match a folder name in worlds_local. A typo there creates a new world rather than an error. Fix the name and restart.

The restored world is a few hours behind. That's the backup interval. Nothing went wrong.

To upload a world from your own PC, see Upload World.