Back up and restore a Project Zomboid save

A Project Zomboid save is a world folder plus a player database, and a backup is only any use if it has both. Here is where they live, how to copy them cleanly, and how to roll back after a mod update ruins your world.

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

Project Zomboid punishes people who skip backups. A Workshop mod updates overnight, the server comes back without a mod that half the map's buildings were made from, and nobody can log in. Ten minutes of setup now makes that an annoyance rather than the end of the server.

The two halves of a save

A multiplayer save is two separate things, stored in two separate places:

• The world. Saves/Multiplayer/servertest/, a folder full of map_*.bin files. This is the map as your players have changed it: every looted house, every built wall, every car moved.
• The player database. db/servertest.db, a single SQLite file. This holds accounts, characters, their skills, where they were standing and their safehouse claims.

Back up the world alone and everyone keeps the map but loses their character. Back up the database alone and there is no world to spawn into. Restore them as a pair, from the same moment in time.

Both are named after your server, servertest by default. If you renamed it, both use the new name.

On a GuavaHost server the game's Zomboid folder is the .cache folder, so the real paths on the Files tab are .cache/Saves/Multiplayer/ and .cache/db/.

Worth taking too, because they are tedious to rebuild: .cache/Server/, which holds servertest.ini and servertest_SandboxVars.lua and therefore your whole configuration including the mod list, covered in our guide to server and sandbox settings, and .cache/Lua/, where some mods keep their own server side data.

The easy way: the Backups page

The quickest backup is the whole server at once, which sidesteps the risk of grabbing one half of a save.

1. Press Stop and wait for the status to go offline. Project Zomboid writes the world to disk as it shuts down, so a snapshot of a running server can catch it mid-write.
2. Open Backups in the server menu and click Create backup. The optional name is worth filling in, because "before Hydrocraft update" tells you more in a month than a timestamp will.
3. Press Start again.

Restore with Restore next to a backup. Restoring overwrites your current files, so it is a full rollback of the server to that moment: world, database and config together.

These snapshots sit on the same machine as your server, which is fine for undoing your own mistakes. For a world a group has spent months on, daily off-site backups copy the whole server to separate cloud storage every day and keep the last seven, so a problem with the machine itself does not take your copies with it. Our backup plan guide covers how much history to keep.

Keeping a copy on your own computer

A copy on your own machine is insurance, and it is the only way to hand a world to somebody else.

1. Press Stop at the top of the server page.
2. Open the Settings tab and expand Connection details. Under File access (SFTP) you will find the address (host), port and username, and Set SFTP password sets the password your SFTP app uses. SFTP moves files securely between your computer and your server, and FileZilla is a free client we recommend.
3. Download .cache/Saves/Multiplayer/servertest/, .cache/db/servertest.db and .cache/Server/ into one dated folder, for example zomboid-2026-10-20.
4. Press Start again.

Keeping all three in one dated folder is the whole trick: you cannot then pair a world from October with a database from September. You can also Download a whole snapshot from the Backups page instead of using SFTP.

The game's own backups

Project Zomboid writes its own zipped backups into .cache/backups/, controlled by servertest.ini on Server properties under Game tools:

• BackupsOnStart=true takes one every time the server boots.
• BackupsOnVersionChange=true takes one when the game version changes, which is the single most valuable one of these.
• BackupsCount=5 is how many to keep before the oldest is deleted.
• BackupsPeriod=0 takes one every so many minutes while running. Leave it at 0, because zipping the world costs performance on a busy server.

Leave the first two on. They are cheap and they have saved a lot of worlds. Do not rely on them alone though: they live on the same disk as the save, and BackupsCount quietly deletes an old one every time the server restarts.

Restoring after a bad mod update

A mod updated, the server will not boot or players cannot load in, and the Console is full of errors about a missing item or a Lua file. Work through it in this order:

1. Stop starting it. Each boot can write more changes on top of the damage, so press Stop and leave it stopped.
2. Take a snapshot of the broken state anyway. If the fix turns out to be small, you will want today's world rather than yesterday's.
3. Read the Console log for the first error, not the last one. It usually names the mod. Our guide to reading server logs and crash reports covers finding the real error in the noise.
4. Try fixing the mod before restoring. If a mod left the Workshop or broke on update, taking it out of the Mods= and WorkshopItems= lines in servertest.ini may be enough to boot. Expect anything that mod added to the world to vanish, which is survivable for a gun pack and fatal for a map add-on. The Workshop mods guide explains how those lines work.
5. Restore if the world itself is damaged. Use Restore on the Backups page, pick the most recent snapshot from before the update, and start the server. Check that the mod list in the restored config matches the mods installed, or you will boot straight back into the same error.

Restoring files by hand

Putting back a copy from your computer rather than a panel snapshot:

1. Press Stop.
2. On the Files tab, delete or rename the current .cache/Saves/Multiplayer/servertest/ folder. Never merge an old world into a new one: leftover map_*.bin files from the newer save will not match.
3. From the same dated folder, upload the world folder into .cache/Saves/Multiplayer/ and servertest.db into .cache/db/.
4. Check the names match your server's name exactly. A world called oldserver is ignored by a server called servertest.
5. Press Start and watch the Console load the world.

If you would rather rename the server than the files, the save transfer guide covers that, and it is the guide to follow when you are moving a world between servers rather than rolling one back.

A routine that works: a panel snapshot before every mod change, game update or config edit, named with the reason; off-site backups on so there is always a copy that is not on the same disk; BackupsOnVersionChange=true left alone in the ini; and a manual download every few weeks into a dated folder with all three pieces together.

Common questions

Do I need to stop the server before taking a backup?

Yes, if you can. Project Zomboid holds world data in memory and flushes it to disk on a clean shutdown, so a snapshot taken while the server is running can catch a half written save. Stop it, wait for it to go offline, take the backup, then start it again.

Why did everyone lose their characters after I restored the world?

Because the player database was not restored with it. Characters, skills and safehouses live in the db folder, separately from the map in the Saves folder, so restoring one without the other gives you a map with no people or people with no map. Always move the pair together.

Can I restore a backup onto a different mod list?

Not safely. Anything a mod added to the world, including buildings from map packs, is stored in the save and breaks without that mod. Match the mod list in the restored config to what is installed before you start the server.

How far back do the panel backups go?

That depends on how many you have taken and kept, since snapshots are yours to create and delete. Off-site backups are the predictable option, because they run daily on their own and keep the last seven, giving you a week of history without having to remember anything.

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

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