Back up and restore a Palworld server

Your Palworld world is a handful of .sav files, and the safe way to copy them is with the server stopped, which is also what makes a restore after a bad update or a bad settings change painless.

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

What actually makes up your save

On your GuavaHost server the world lives under Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/, in a folder with a long name made of letters and numbers, something like 2E85FD38BAA792EB1D4C09386F3A3CDA. Inside it you will normally see:

Level.sav
LevelMeta.sav
Players/

Level.sav is the world itself: terrain changes, every base and structure, chests and their contents, and your guild's Pals. The Players folder holds one file per player, which is the character, their level and their inventory. You may also see WorldOption.sav, which can carry world settings baked into the save, and a backup folder holding Palworld's own periodic copies.

The important thing is that these files belong together. Level.sav without the matching Players files gives you your bases with nobody who owns them, so always copy the whole world folder rather than picking files out of it.

Why copying a running server is risky

Palworld does not write its save continuously. It writes Level.sav in one go on a save tick, and that file is large on a mature world. If your copy happens to land in the middle of one of those writes, you get half an old world and half a new one, which Palworld will usually refuse to load or will load with pieces missing.

That is the whole reason this guide keeps telling you to stop the server. A stopped server is not writing anything, so what you copy is exactly what was there.

Panel snapshots are more forgiving than a manual file copy, because they are quick and they grab the whole server at once, but the only guaranteed-consistent backup is one taken while the server is off. For anything you cannot afford to lose, spend the two minutes.

The safest backup, step by step

1. Sign in at customer.guavahost.com, open My servers and click Manage on your Palworld server.
2. Warn anyone online, then click Stop at the top of the page and wait for the server to go fully offline in the Console.
3. Open the Backups page in the server menu and click Create backup. Give it a name you will recognise later, such as "before v0.5 update".
4. Start the server again.

That is it. The snapshot covers the whole server, so your config files and any .pak mods come along with the world.

Keep a copy that is not on the server

A panel snapshot lives on the same machine as your server, which makes it the right tool for risky changes but not for disaster insurance. For a world you would be gutted to lose, do one of these as well:

• Download the world folder from the Files tab, or 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). Our SFTP guide walks through the connection. Keep dated copies so you can go back to a specific day rather than just "last week".
• Turn on Daily Off-site Backups, which copy the whole server to separate cloud storage every day and keep the last seven.

Take one automatically

Open the Scheduled tasks page in the server menu, create a schedule, and give it a step that chooses Take a backup. Untick Skip if the server is offline so it runs either way. Daily is plenty for most groups, and it pairs well with a daily restart, which Palworld performance benefits from anyway.

When you really want a backup first

• Before a game update. Palworld patches have occasionally changed save handling, and a save written by a newer build does not reliably go back to an older one.
• Before editing settings. A typo in the single long OptionSettings line in PalWorldSettings.ini can stop the server loading at all. See editing PalWorldSettings.ini.
• Before installing or removing .pak mods.
• Before uploading a world over the one that is there.
• Before anything that involves the word "wipe".

Restore from a panel snapshot

1. Stop the server and wait for it to go offline.
2. Open the Backups page, find the snapshot you want and restore it.
3. Start the server and check in game that bases, chests and Pals are where you expect.

A restore overwrites what is on the server now, so if there is any chance you will want today's state back, take a fresh snapshot before you roll back. You then have both, and you can pick.

Restore files by hand

If you only have the world folder, for example a copy you downloaded a month ago:

1. Stop the server.
2. On the Files tab, go to Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/.
3. Rename the current world folder rather than deleting it, so you can undo this.
4. Upload your copy into 0/ and unpack it there. Check that Level.sav sits directly inside the world folder and is not nested one level too deep.
5. Open Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/GameUserSettings.ini and make sure DedicatedServerName= matches the folder name exactly. On a Proton or UE4SS server the path is WindowsServer instead of LinuxServer.
6. Start the server and watch the Console for the first real error if it does not come up.

What a restore costs you

Everything that happened after the backup was taken. Bases built, Pals caught, levels gained, chests filled: all of it goes back to the state in the snapshot. That is why it is worth taking a backup at a known-good moment rather than only after something breaks, and worth keeping a few generations instead of one.

Common questions

Can I take a Palworld backup without kicking players off?

Yes, a panel snapshot can run while the server is live, and most of the time it is fine. The catch is that Palworld writes its world file in one burst, so a live snapshot can occasionally catch that write half done. For a backup you are relying on, stop the server first.

How often should I back up a Palworld server?

Daily is a good baseline for an active group, plus a manual snapshot before any update, mod change or settings edit. Keep several generations rather than overwriting one, because a problem such as a griefed base or a corrupt save is often noticed days after it happened.

Will restoring an old save roll back my character too?

Yes. Characters live in the Players folder inside the same world folder, so a full restore takes levels, inventories and gear back to the moment of the backup along with the world. There is no way to restore the world but keep today's characters.

My world folder has a backup folder in it, is that enough?

Those are Palworld's own copies and they are useful in an emergency, but they sit on the same disk as the save they are protecting and the game manages them, not you. Treat them as a last resort and keep a real backup, ideally one that is not on the server at all.

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

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