PC Game Save Locations: The Exact Folders Steam, Epic, and Windows Hide (Before You Reinstall)

“Where are PC game saves stored?” has no single answer. Steam, Epic, GOG, EA, Ubisoft Connect, and Microsoft’s Xbox app each pick their own default location, and plenty of individual games override the launcher’s default anyway. The short version: most non-cloud saves live in one of four places — %appdata%, Documents\My Games, C:\Users\[you]\Saved Games, or Steam’s own userdata folder — and this guide gives you the exact path for each launcher, explains why some guides’ paths silently stop working, and shows what to do when a save isn’t where anyone said it would be.

I lost about six hours of a Baldur’s Gate 3 run the first time I wiped a drive without checking any of this — the game’s local save folder and its Steam Cloud copy had quietly drifted out of sync, and I only found out after the reinstall. If you’re about to reformat, migrate to a new PC, or just back up your progress, read the “before you reinstall” section before you touch anything else.

Quick Start: Find Your Save Files Right Now

For most games, your save is one of these checks away — work down the list until you find it.

1. Check the game’s settings or its Steam/Epic/GOG properties for a “Cloud Save” toggle first. If it’s already on, you don’t need to touch a folder at all.
2. Press Win+R, type %appdata%, hit Enter. Look for a folder named after the game or its publisher.
3. No luck? Try %localappdata% and %localappdata%\..\LocalLow the same way — many Unreal Engine and Unity titles save there instead of Roaming.
4. Check Documents\My Games\[Game Name] — the long-standing default for older and AAA titles.
5. Check C:\Users\[you]\Saved Games\[Game Name].
6. Steam-specific: check C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\[your SteamID]\[the game's AppID]\remote[5].
7. Still nothing? Skip to the troubleshooting method below rather than guessing.

If you’re tuning performance at the same time as hunting down saves on a fresh install, our guide to optimizing your PC for better FPS covers the settings side of it.

The 4 Folders Where PC Games Actually Store Saves

Nearly every non-cloud PC game save lands in one of four Windows locations, and which one a given game uses depends on how old its engine is and what permissions the developer wanted.

The single biggest takeaway: every one of these is hidden or semi-hidden by default. Press Win+R, paste the environment variable, and hit Enter — that expands it to the real path without clicking through five layers of File Explorer[1].

Save Locations by Launcher: Steam, Epic, GOG, EA, Ubisoft, and Xbox

Your launcher decides the default install path, but not always the save path — some launchers sync saves to the cloud automatically, others leave it entirely to the game.

Playing one of these specific games? We’ve mapped the exact save folder for Baldur’s Gate 3, Hades 2, Path of Exile 2, Palworld, and Schedule I.

Why the Folder Isn’t Where the Guide Said It Would Be

Most “wrong path” complaints come down to one mismatch: Windows offers two different ways to point at the same folder, and they don’t always agree.

Windows has an older system — environment variables like %APPDATA% and %USERPROFILE% — and a newer one called the Known Folders API, which uses fixed IDs (like FOLDERID_SavedGames) instead of text paths. Most guides, including some developers’ own documentation, still use the old environment-variable paths because there’s no simple way for an end user to type a Known Folder ID into File Explorer[1]. The problem: if you’ve ever relocated a folder like Documents or Saved Games to another drive (right-click → Properties → Location), the environment-variable path and the real Known Folder location split apart. Cyberpunk 2077 is a documented real-world case of this — the game reads its save path from %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games, but Steam’s Auto-Cloud sync uses the Known Folder ID instead, so on a PC with a relocated Saved Games folder the two stop pointing at the same place and cloud sync silently fails for that game[1]. If a guide’s path doesn’t match what you see, check whether you’ve ever moved a system folder before assuming the guide is wrong.

There’s a second, older mechanism worth knowing about: Windows blocks unelevated programs from writing directly inside Program Files, ProgramData, or the Windows folder, and quietly redirects those writes into AppData\Local\VirtualStore instead[1]. Some older or poorly-updated games that save inside their own install folder are actually writing to VirtualStore without telling you — which is why a save can appear to vanish from the game folder while still existing on disk.

Xbox and Game Pass Saves: The WindowsApps Trap

Game Pass installs the game itself inside the heavily locked-down WindowsApps folder, but that’s not where most titles keep their save data — and Microsoft explicitly tells you not to go digging around in there anyway.

WindowsApps sits under C:\Program Files and is one of the most protected folders in Windows, locked down specifically to stop tampering with Store apps[2]. Save data for Game Pass titles is typically stored separately inside AppData, sandboxed per app package — but access is still restricted enough that manually copying it is unreliable from game to game. Try to force your way into a Game Pass title’s package folder and Windows fights you at every click: permission prompts, then “access denied” on the deepest subfolder. That’s by design, not a bug.

If you specifically need a Game Pass title’s install path — say, to point another tool at the executable — Microsoft’s own recommended method is Task Manager, not File Explorer: open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), go to Processes, right-click a column header to add “Command Line,” then launch the game and read the path it shows[2]. For saves specifically, the reliable answer is Xbox Cloud Saves: sign into the same Microsoft account on the new PC, reinstall through the Xbox app, and progress syncs automatically. Don’t spend an evening fighting WindowsApps permissions for something the cloud already handles.

Still Can’t Find It? A Systematic Way to Track Down Any Save

Work through these checks in order rather than guessing — each one rules out a different failure mode.

1. Search the specific game on PCGamingWiki. Its “Save game data location” field is community-verified for that exact title, and it’s far more reliable than a generic list like this one for game-specific quirks[1].
2. If the game supports Steam Cloud, check store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage while logged in — it lists every Cloud-synced game and its storage usage, even if you can’t find the local folder[7].
3. Open File Explorer, go to your user folder, sort by “Date modified,” and save again in-game. The newest file on disk after that save is very likely it, wherever it’s hiding.
4. Check the Windows Registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\[Publisher]\[Game] — some older titles store save data or a save-path pointer here instead of a plain file[1].

Backing Up Saves Before You Reinstall or Switch PCs

Copy the entire save folder, not individual files, and confirm cloud sync status before you touch anything — most save corruption during a transfer comes from skipping one of those two steps.

For cloud-enabled games, check that the last sync shows as recent in the game’s Steam/Epic/EA properties before you wipe anything. Cloud saves can overwrite a manual restore later if you’re not careful, so launch the game offline first on the new PC to confirm which version actually loaded[6]. For everything else, copy the whole folder — companion files like .bak backups and metadata sit alongside the main save file, and a partial copy is a common cause of a save refusing to load on the new machine[6]. Keep the same relative path and drive letter on the new PC where you can; some games nest saves under a profile-specific ID that has to match.

How much of this matters depends on how much you’re moving:

Why isn’t my save where every guide says it should be?

Because most guides use environment-variable paths (%APPDATA%, %USERPROFILE%) that only resolve correctly on a default Windows install. If you’ve ever relocated your Documents or Saved Games folder to another drive, the path a guide gives you and the folder Windows actually uses can quietly diverge — see the mechanism section above before assuming the guide is wrong.

Does Steam Cloud back up literally everything in a save folder?

No. Auto-Cloud only syncs the specific root paths and file patterns a developer configured for that game, capped at 100MB per file[4]. Treat “it’s on Steam Cloud” as a per-game claim to verify, not a blanket guarantee, especially for games with unusually large save files.

Can I just copy my Xbox Game Pass saves like a normal file?

Technically some are reachable, but Microsoft locks WindowsApps down hard enough that manual copying is unreliable and explicitly discouraged[2]. Xbox Cloud Saves tied to your Microsoft account is the dependable path — sign in on the new PC and let it sync rather than fighting the permissions.

What’s the one thing to do before reinstalling Windows?

Confirm cloud sync status for every cloud-capable game, then copy the complete save folders for everything else off the C: drive entirely — not just into another folder on the same drive, since a full reinstall usually wipes the whole partition.

Sources

1. PCGamingWiki. Glossary:Game data — Windows data paths, Known Folders API, launcher install locations. PCGamingWiki
2. Microsoft Learn. Xbox Game Pass for PC File location. Microsoft Q&A
3. Epic Games. Cloud Saves — developer documentation. Epic Games Developer Portal
4. Valve. Steam Cloud — Auto-Cloud configuration, sync timing, storage quotas. Steamworks Documentation
5. thinglabs. Steam Saves Location and Game Data Guide (2026). thinglabs.io
6. SaveGameLocation. How to Move Your Game Saves to a New PC. SaveGameLocation.com
7. How-To Geek. How to Download Your Save Games From Steam Cloud. How-To Geek

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.