Steam Cloud is a cloud storage service that allows users to upload their game data to be hosted online. This can include save game files, in-game settings, profiles, and even settings from the Steam client itself.
However, in recent days, there has been an increase in negative posts about Steam Cloud across various forums, indicating a loss of trust in the service. Users are now seeking methods to back up their Steam Cloud saves. This article aims to provide a comprehensive analysis and solution to this issue from multiple perspectives.
You might be interested in more information about the game:
Why would you want to back up your Steam Cloud saves? The answer is simple: the Steam Cloud isn't all that reliable.
Many gamers use Steam Cloud to sync their game saves, only to find them missing when they want to replay a game. The nature of automatic syncing limits Steam's ability to address issues with cloud saves. As such, there's little chance of recovery if Steam Cloud caused you to lose your save files or other game data.
While Steam Cloud does help you save your game progress, it's not really meant to be a backup tool. Its purpose is to facilitate the transfer of game data between PCs so that a user can log into their account on a different computer and pick up where they left off.
As such, to more thoroughly safeguard your game saves, it's recommended that you don't rely on Steam Cloud synchronization and instead make manual backups. Before doing so, you'll need to locate where Steam Cloud saves its files locally, as detailed below.
By default, the Steam Cloud saves its files to the following locations on your local computer. Check the appropriate location for your operating system.
To easily access your saved files, open the File Explorer on your PC and navigate to the local folder by searching for its address.
Locate where the Steam Cloud saves are through File Explorer.
To find the cloud save location for a specific game, append /(Your Steam ID)/(Game ID) to the path mentioned above.
For example, the file location for Monster Hunter Rise would be: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Library\UserData\(Your Steam ID)\1446780
Upon locating your Steam Cloud save files, back up the saves you need immediately to guard against potential data loss due to unknown Steam Cloud errors.
When it comes to backups, you might think of manually copying and pasting your files to a specific backup location on your computer. There's nothing wrong with that approach, but if you go this route, you'll need to remember to create a backup after every play session. This can become burdensome in the long run for many players.
Thus, your best bet would be to use a professional manual backup tool for creating a scheduled backup of your Steam cloud saves.
As the best PC game save backup software, Todo Backup Home offers a scheduled backup plan to all users. You can choose your preferred backup mode from full backup, incremental backup and differential backup, and set the backup cycle based on your daily gaming time.
Once set up, every time you update your game, Todo Backup Home will automatically back up your latest game data. It also supports storing the backups in the 250 GB of free cloud storage it provides, so you can transfer your saves to another PC.
Here's a detailed guide on how to back up your Steam cloud saves using Todo Backup.
Step 1. To begin the backup, tap on “Choose what to back up.”
Step 2: There are four backup categories, Files, Disks, OS and Mail. Please click on “Files”.
**Step 3.** On the left, you'll see Local and Network files. Expand the folders to locate your backup file.
Step 4: Follow the on-screen instructions to choose where you want to save your backup file.
Click the “Options” button, go to “Backup Options”, set a password for the backup, and then click “Backup Schedule” to set the time for backups. You can also choose other options to meet your specific needs.
Step 5: Backups can be stored on a local disk, on an EDS service, or on a network-attached storage (NAS) device.
Step 6. Todo Backup also allows users to back up data to third-party cloud drives as well as its own.
If you want to back up your data to a cloud drive provided by a third party, choose “Local Disk,” scroll down to add a “Cloud Device,” and then add and sign in to your account.
You can also choose Todo Backup Cloud Drive. Sign up for a Todo Backup account, and then click Todo Backup Cloud and log in.
Step 7. Click Backup Now to start the backup process. When it's done, the backup task will appear as a card on the left panel. Right-click on the backup task for further processing.
This article will provide you with an in-depth analysis on why you can't solely depend on Steam Cloud, and introduce you to an easy and efficient solution to back up Steam Cloud saves. All you need is to download Todo Backup Home, locate where your Steam Cloud saves are stored, and use the software to create a backup.
Here are the simple steps to download your Steam cloud saves:
Step 1: Log into the Steam Cloud website using your Steam ID.
Step 2: Find the game that you want to download a save file for in the list.
Step 3: Click on “Show Files,” and you'll see a list of saved files with different modification dates.
Step 4: Click the “Download” button, and you can now download your Steam Cloud save.
Follow these steps to easily restore your Steam Cloud saves:
Step 1: Log into the Steam Cloud website using your Steam ID.
Step 2: Download the save file you wish to restore
Step 3: Place the downloaded file in the game's local save location.
Here's a detailed tutorial on how to delete your Steam cloud save files.
Step 1: Start up Steam and download all of your game saves from the Steam Cloud.
Step 2: Switch Steam to Offline mode, then navigate to the game's local file location.
Step 3: Open the App ID folder and delete any save files you don't want to keep.
Step 4: Start the game, and then end the game.
Step 5: Switch Steam to Online Mode
Step 6: On the library page, you'll see a conflict status for the file. Click it.
Step 7: You can now choose to use the local files and overwrite the content in the Steam cloud.