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World files and transferring a world

Where Valheim keeps worlds, moving a world from your PC or another host, and switching between worlds.

1 min readUpdated 2026-09-14Diese Anleitung auf Deutsch lesen →

Worlds live in .config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/ on the server. Each world is two files: <Name>.db (the world data) and <Name>.fwl (the header). Both are needed.

From your PC

Singleplayer/hosted worlds are in C:\Users\<you>\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local\ (Windows) or ~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/ (Linux/macOS). Steam Cloud saves may sit in worlds instead of worlds_local.

  1. Stop the server.
  2. Upload <Name>.db and <Name>.fwl to .config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/ (the Files tab shows hidden folders; enable show dot files or type the path).
  3. Set WORLD in Startup to <Name> (without extension).
  4. Start.

From another host

Same files, same target folder. Take the newest .db. Hosts often keep .db.old backups next to it; ignore those.

Characters

Characters are stored on the player's PC (characters_local/), not on the server. Nothing to transfer for them.

Several worlds

Keep several pairs of files and switch WORLD between them; the inactive ones just sit there. Only one world runs at a time per server.