Back up and restore an ARK save

An ARK world is a .ark map file plus a profile file for every player and a tribe file for every tribe, and a backup only works if you take all of them together with the server stopped.

6 min read · Updated Oct 21, 2026 · By GuavaHost Team

The files that make up your save

Everything lives in ShooterGame/Saved/SavedArks/, which you can open on the Files tab of your server.

In ARK: Survival Evolved you will see them sitting together in that folder:

TheIsland.ark
TheIsland.bak
<steamid>.arkprofile
<tribeid>.arktribe

In ARK: Survival Ascended the same files sit inside a subfolder named after the map, for example SavedArks/TheIsland_WP/.

What each one is:

• The .ark file is the world. Terrain changes, every structure, every tamed creature, every dropped item and container.
• .arkprofile files are the players. One per player: their character, level, stats and learned engrams.
• .arktribe files are the tribes: membership, ranks, tribe log and tribe ownership of structures and tames.
• The .bak file is ARK's own copy of the previous save, written automatically. It is a genuine safety net, and renaming it over a broken .ark has rescued a lot of worlds.

These are not independent. A .ark restored without its profiles gives you a world full of bases nobody owns, and players who log in as fresh level one survivors standing next to their own locked doors. Always take the whole folder.

It is worth grabbing GameUserSettings.ini and Game.ini from ShooterGame/Saved/Config/ at the same time, so your rates and rules come back with the world rather than having to be rebuilt from memory.

Save, then stop, then copy

ARK holds a lot in memory and writes the world on its own autosave timer. Two habits make a backup trustworthy:

1. Run saveworld in the Console first, so the files on disk match what is actually happening in game. Without it you can lose everything since the last autosave.
2. Stop the server before copying anything. A .ark file on a mature world is big, and a copy taken mid-write gives you a file ARK will refuse to load.

A panel snapshot is more forgiving than a manual file copy and can run while the server is live, which is exactly what you want for a scheduled backup. For a backup you are about to rely on, before an update or a mod change, do it properly with the server off.

Take a backup now

1. Sign in at customer.guavahost.com, open My servers and click Manage on your ARK server.
2. In the Console, run broadcast Saving and restarting in 2 minutes so nobody is caught out, then run saveworld and wait for it to finish.
3. Click Stop at the top of the page and wait for the server to go fully offline.
4. Open the Backups page in the server menu, click Create backup and name it something you will recognise, such as "before mod update". The general backups guide covers the page itself in more detail.
5. Start the server again.

Snapshots cover the whole server, so mods, configs and the save all travel together.

Keep a copy off the server

Panel snapshots sit on the same machine as your server. That makes them the right tool for risky changes, and the wrong tool as your only insurance. For a world your group has poured months into, add one of these:

• Download the SavedArks folder and your config files to your own PC, over SFTP with a client like FileZilla using the details under Connection details on the Settings tab (SFTP is a secure way to move files between your computer and your server). Keep dated copies. The same mechanics are covered step by step in transferring an ARK save.
• Turn on Daily Off-site Backups, which copy the whole server to separate cloud storage every day and keep the last seven.

Put it on a schedule

Open the Scheduled tasks page in the server menu and build a schedule whose first step is a console command running saveworld, with a second step of Take a backup a minute later. Untick Skip if the server is offline so it runs either way.

Daily is right for most servers. If you already have a nightly restart, and you should, put the backup just before it: the ARK automatic restarts guide shows how the steps in a schedule are ordered and how to warn players first.

If you run a cluster across several maps, every map needs its own backup schedule, and the shared transfer folder is worth including too.

Restore a backup

1. Stop the server and wait for it to go offline.
2. Take a fresh snapshot of the current state first. A restore overwrites what is there, and this gives you a way back if you restore the wrong one.
3. Open the Backups page, pick the snapshot and restore it.
4. Start the server and watch the Console load the world.

To restore files by hand instead, stop the server, rename the existing SavedArks folder rather than deleting it, and upload your copy in its place. Two things to check before you start it: the map in Startup settings on the Settings tab has to match the save, because ARK quietly generates a brand new world if it does not, and for Ascended the files need to be in the matching map subfolder.

What a restore loses

Everything between the backup and now. Structures built, creatures tamed, levels earned, loot gathered: it all reverts. Players who joined after the snapshot have no profile in it, so they come back as new survivors.

That is why a griefing incident is better handled by restoring to a snapshot from just before it than by restoring last week's, and why keeping several generations beats keeping one. If something looks wrong but you are not sure when it started, take a snapshot of the current state before touching anything, so investigating does not destroy evidence.

If the save will not load

Before restoring an older backup, try the .bak file. Stop the server, rename the current .ark to something else, then rename TheIsland.bak to TheIsland.ark, using your own map name. That recovers the previous save, which is usually only minutes older. If that fails too, go to your most recent snapshot.

Common questions

Do I need to stop my ARK server to back it up?

For a scheduled snapshot, no, it can run while the server is live and that is fine day to day. For a backup you are about to rely on, run saveworld and stop the server first, because a large world file copied mid-write may not load.

Does an ARK backup include my players and tribes?

It does if you back up the whole SavedArks folder or take a panel snapshot, because the .arkprofile and .arktribe files live there alongside the world. Copying only the .ark file gives you a world where nobody owns anything.

Can I restore just one player or one tribe?

In principle yes, because each one is its own file, so an individual .arkprofile or .arktribe can be put back from a backup with the server stopped. In practice it often causes mismatches between what the world thinks exists and what the profile claims, so test it on a copy before doing it to a live server.

How many backups should I keep?

Several generations, not one. A corrupt save or a griefed base is frequently noticed days later, and a single rolling backup will have overwritten the last good copy by then. Daily snapshots plus off-site copies cover almost every scenario.

Still stuck? Jump into our Discord at discord.gg/GuavaHost and the team will help you out.

• ark
• backup
• restore
• savedarks
• save files

Host an ARK: Survival Ascended server From $17.99/mo, with instant setup and DDoS protection.

Still need help? Our team is online 24/7 to answer questions.

Contact support