The Planet Crafter is a game of slow, compounding progress - every heater, drill and tree spreader nudges the terraformation index a little further. Which makes it genuinely painful when a session’s work vanishes because the game did not save the way you assumed it did, or when the whole world is locked on a host who is busy this week. This guide covers both: where the save file is, exactly how saving works, and how to get the world onto someone else’s PC.

Where Is the Planet Crafter Save File Located?

On Windows:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\MijuGames\Planet Crafter\

The fastest way to get there is to press F1 on the game’s main menu - Planet Crafter opens the save folder for you, no path typing required.

If you would rather navigate yourself, note that LocalLow is hidden by default and is a different folder from %APPDATA%. Either turn on Hidden items in File Explorer’s View menu, or paste the path straight into the address bar.

Each world is saved as a single file named after the world, and the game keeps a backup save beside it in case the main file is corrupted. The format is custom - one flat file with the game data packed together and separated by @ symbols - so there is nothing to open or edit by hand.

Where Is the Save on Steam Deck or Linux?

The game runs under Proton, so it writes into the Proton prefix rather than a native Linux directory:

steamapps/compatdata/1284190/pfx/

From there the path continues exactly as it does on Windows, through AppData/LocalLow/MijuGames/Planet Crafter.

How Do You Save in Planet Crafter?

  • Manual save: press Escape to open the menu, then click Save.
  • Autosave: runs roughly every 10 to 15 minutes while you play.
  • On quit: nothing happens. The Planet Crafter does not save when you close it, and it does not warn you about unsaved progress.

That last point is the one worth committing to memory. Quitting without pressing Escape and Save costs you everything since the last autosave, silently. Make the Esc-Save reflex part of ending a session.

Steam Cloud sync does work here, even though the store page does not advertise it, so your own PCs stay in step. What Steam Cloud will not do is move the world between two different people’s accounts - which is where co-op runs aground.

Does Planet Crafter Have a Dedicated Server?

No. There is no server build, nothing to rent, and nothing to run on a spare box. Multiplayer is peer-to-peer: one player hosts, everyone else joins their session, and the world save exists only on that host’s drive.

Everyone else can place machines, haul resources and push the terraformation index all evening - and still have no access whatsoever to the world they just built. When the host is unavailable, the planet simply stops.

Since there is no server to move the world onto, the only way another player can host is for them to hold a copy of the save file.

How to Share a Planet Crafter Save With a Friend

Manually:

  1. Close the game on both machines - and save first, because quitting will not.
  2. Press F1 on the main menu before closing, or open %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\MijuGames\Planet Crafter\ directly.
  3. Copy the save file for your world and send it over.
  4. Your friend drops it into the same folder on their PC.
  5. They launch the game and the world appears in their load list.

Workable once. Tedious every session, in both directions - and the first time someone hosts from last week’s copy, an evening of terraforming disappears with no way to merge it back.

How SaveSync Keeps the Planet Moving

SaveSync syncs the world save to every PC in your group, puts it in the folder the game reads, and tracks which copy is newest so nobody loads a stale planet. Machine placements, terraformation progress and stockpiles all carry across intact.

How to Set Up SaveSync for Planet Crafter

  1. Install SaveSync from Steam on every PC that might host.
  2. Save and close the game. SaveSync only works while Planet Crafter is not running.
  3. Open SaveSync and pick The Planet Crafter from the game list on the left.
  4. Click + New Save, choose your world, then Create Save.
  5. Wait for the green checkmark - that means the upload finished.
  6. Click the share icon, search your friend’s Steam username, and hit Share.
  7. Your friend clicks Activate, launches the game, and hosts the same world.

One Planet, Many Terraformers

A world that only moves forward when one specific person is free is a world that mostly sits still. With the save synced, whoever has a spare half hour tonight can push the index a little further, and the planet keeps changing between sessions rather than waiting for one.

New here? Start with Getting Started with SaveSync. For the general version of this problem, see how to play co-op when the host is offline, and co-op games with dedicated servers covers which games do have a server option and which, like this one, do not.