Steam Game Saves

[Johan]

Anyone have a utility that you use to back up your Steam game saves, or a recommendation of a method for doing so besides the "back up your entire drive" recommendation?

I'm actually surprised that Steam hasn't come out with a utility to do this. Maybe they have and I haven't read about it?

Recommendations are appreciated! I can't back up my entire Steam folder any longer. It's just too large. I would love to just back up the saves...

[Jotoco]

Valve games (most) save into the clouds, so no worries there.

Other developers use save folders however they please, as in Batman AA, for instance. Using GFWL for saves.

I don't think You can backup everything easily. Mostly I copy my "USER" folder in windows and 99% of my saves are there.

[Johan]

I do like the Steam cloud feature, but I have a heckuva lot of games that aren't cloud-enabled. I've found Steam game saves in:

* C:\Documents and Settings\Compaq_Administrator\Application Data\[insert game or publisher name here]

* C:\Documents and Settings\Compaq_Administrator\My Documents\[insert game or publisher name here]

* C:\Documents and Settings\Compaq_Administrator\My Documents\My Games\[insert game or publisher name here]

And a few other places I'm sure. It's a bit disorienting/disorganized. I just want an easy way to back up my saves and, when I build a new computer, transfer them over without copying gigs worth of data for no reason.

[corwiniii]

This is not an exact answer, but I have been syncing save data across multiple machines with dropbox. It take a little setup - it is NOT automated to begin with - but it's one-time setup for the games you have and a little work for each new one.

It was reposted here on evav (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99264), but originally from the steam forums (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1009438).

[Johan]

This is not an exact answer, but I have been syncing save data across multiple machines with dropbox. It take a little setup - it is NOT automated to begin with - but it's one-time setup for the games you have and a little work for each new one.

It was reposted here on evav (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99264), but originally from the steam forums (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1009438).

Thank you for reposting that; I remembered it but couldn't find it. I wish there were something a bit simpler, but I may just go ahead and work with that. I'm no longer backing up my Steam folder. It's just too ridiculously large.

[furtim]

AFAIK, third-party games (that don't use SteamCloud) use whatever save location the developers feel like. That's why you find saves stashed away in so many different directories, because there's no single convention they all follow.

[brandonjclark]

Even worse, I find that Google Chrome (and other applications) are now installing to the user profile instead of making proper configurations.

[Emabulator]

Every time I uninstall a game or application these days it's like playing Where's Waldo hunting down the crap that gets left behind.

[Johan]

I have to admit I have no idea why Valve doesn't simply require Steam games to place game save content in one centralized location. It's a pain in the butt.

Edit: The various locations for Steam game saves. (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=840657)

Absolutely nuts.