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Ludusavi seems like a pretty good open source game save backup tool

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Need something to keep your game saves backed up with a friendly UI? Ludusavi is one such project that's free and open source, so anyone can help with it. Cross-platform too across Linux, macOS and Windows!

The way it works is pretty interesting, with saved game data scraped from PCGamingWiki and then stored into a main file that's continually updated and downloaded when you use the app itself. It doesn't entirely rely on that though, as you can also add custom locations of what to backup.

Not the prettiest but it works.

For the Linux version and Steam it supports normal native Linux games, and it mentions it works with Proton saves too. It will even backup your Steam screenshots. Seems you can run it with the UI or via CLI if you prefer that. Is a game missing? You can just add the saved game details to PCGamingWiki for it to then work for everyone, so even though it uses the data from it they have quite a nice symbiotic relationship.

Not just backing up though, it can restore it all to the right place for you as well. This could be really useful. Hopefully you think so too.

Find it on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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12 comments
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BloodaxeNOR Feb 2, 2021
YES! I'm giving this tool a try as soon as I'm home! I've lost so many save files during distro-hopps or clean installs that I can't even... Backing them up manually is a chore, so this might save my ass 😎😁 go FOSS 😍
hardpenguin Feb 2, 2021
This is pretty cool, I should have used it before I nuked my Majesty 2 Proton installation last night 🤔
TheSHEEEP Feb 2, 2021
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This is really neat, as unfortunately not all games support cloud save on Steam and for some I so far used self-written scripts to back them up via my SpiderOak.
But if something could automate that process more, it would be very welcome.
photostyle Feb 2, 2021
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Always good to have another option for managing game saves! I've been using Game Backup Monitor + self-hosted NextCloud to keep things in sync.
Jahimself Feb 2, 2021
Awesome it is so tedious to do it manually.
pb Feb 2, 2021
I just start steam with a script saying:
HOME=/home/pb/saves steam $@
so I have all Steam games' saves in one place, instead of them being scattered all over my home dir.
I imagine this can be easily done with other clients as well, such as lutris, gamehub, minigalaxy or legendary/heroic
KohlyKohl Feb 2, 2021
Awesome find!

The name is going to be really hard to remember though.


Last edited by KohlyKohl on 2 February 2021 at 4:54 pm UTC
kaiman Feb 2, 2021
This is pretty neat. Had no problem in picking up my Steam and GOG folder and the games installed within.

But it doesn't find save files for games installed in various Wine prefixes, even after manually adding those folders. And it's reporting nearly 3GB for Crusader Kings 3, as it's picking up heaps of cache files besides the actual saves. So there's clearly some room for improvement.

I'd also wish it'd pick up saves of games no longer installed. Sometimes it's not so much about preserving those, but to actually get rid of them :-).

Edit: at least support for custom Wine prefixes is in the works.


Last edited by kaiman on 2 February 2021 at 7:27 pm UTC
Faalagorn Feb 2, 2021
After having a good overlay with MangoHud I guess save backup tool is the next important tool that may be important for people switching over so it's good it's there :) Thee is a similar tool on GitLab called GBML (previously called SLSK on GitHub before moving to GitLab), but it unfortunately got its last update two years ago badly. I have yet to see this tool, but like I said it's nice to see some newer alternative that's also multiplatform!

EDIT: It also seems to take data from PCGamingWiki – it's a very Linux-friendly wiki so I encourage you to edit, especially add Linux save location for the native Linux games you play as that's where the data most likely comes from :)


Last edited by Faalagorn on 2 February 2021 at 9:15 pm UTC
mylka Feb 3, 2021
this tool showed my how big fallout4 savegames are
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