Transferring Your Palworld Save to a Server

Move your co-op world to a dedicated server: save locations, GameUserSettings.ini, the host character problem and how to back up properly.

Moving a co-op world to a dedicated server

You’ve been playing co-op with friends and want to move your world to a dedicated server? That works — via file copy. There is no official transfer feature (see below), but the manual route is very doable.

⚠️ First: back up both — your local save and the server save.

Where are the saves?

Local (co-op host, Windows/Steam):

%LocalAppData%\Pal\Saved\SaveGames\<your-SteamID64>\<world-folder>\

The world folder has a random hex name. Inside are Level.sav, LevelMeta.sav, WorldOption.sav, LocalData.sav and the Players/ folder.

On your RespawnHost server:

Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/<DedicatedServerName>/

The <DedicatedServerName> folder name is defined in Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/GameUserSettings.ini — the two must match, otherwise the server won’t load the world.

Step by step

  1. Stop the server (in the panel). Never copy files while the server is running.
  2. Open the file manager in the panel (or SFTP) and navigate to Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/.
  3. Back up the existing server world folder (rename or download it).
  4. Upload the entire contents of your local world folder into the server world folder (Level.sav, LevelMeta.sav, WorldOption.sav, LocalData.sav, Players/).
  5. Check in GameUserSettings.ini that DedicatedServerName points to exactly that folder name.
  6. Start the server — the world should load.

The host character problem (important!)

In co-op, the host’s character is saved under the player ID 00000000000000000000000000000001.sav. On a dedicated server every player gets a real, individual ID — so the host would have to start with a new character even though their world is there.

The community solution is the tool palworld-host-save-fix (xNul, GitHub): it migrates the host character to the new player ID. Note:

  • The tool is experimental — the author himself insists on backups.
  • Known edge cases affect guild membership and Pal behavior, among others.
  • All other players (non-hosts) are unaffected — their characters work right away after the move.

Common misconception: “World Transfer” in 1.0

Palworld 1.0 has a feature called World Transfer — but it only carries your Pals between your own worlds (Global Palbox mechanic), e.g. for a fresh start. It does not upload a co-op world to a dedicated server. For moving a world, the manual route above remains the only way.

Server → server (e.g. from another host)

Same procedure, just simpler: download the complete world folder (SaveGames/0/<name>/) from the old server, upload it at RespawnHost, check DedicatedServerName, start. The host character problem does not apply here, since all IDs are already dedicated IDs.