SaveState

A user-friendly GUI application for Windows and Linux to easily back up and restore video game save files. Perfect for games without cloud saves, managing multiple save locations, or syncing your progress across devices.

Zero Configuration Required — Download, run, and start backing up. No config files to edit, no setup wizard, no account needed. If a guide tells you to configure SaveState before using it, that guide is wrong.

No Admin Rights Needed — This app does NOT require administrator privileges. If Windows asks you to run it as admin, don't — something is wrong.

About this Project

SaveState aims to prevent the frustration of losing your precious game progress due to corruption, accidental deletion, or system changes.

This tool offers a modern graphical interface for creating compressed backups of your game save files, managing multiple game profiles, syncing to the cloud, and restoring them whenever needed.

SaveState features automatic detection of Steam games, support for all major launchers via drag & drop, deep emulator integration, and now cloud synchronization with Google Drive.

What This App Does (and Doesn't Do)

✅ Does	❌ Does NOT
Backs up game saves to .zip files	Modify your game files in any way
Auto-detects save locations	Require an external database
Syncs to cloud (optional)	Need mandatory account registration
Works out of the box	Require editing config files
Stores settings in a local JSON file	Phone home or collect telemetry
Runs with standard user permissions	Need or request administrator privileges

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✨ Key Features

☁️ Cloud Save (Multi-Provider Support)

Sync your saves across devices with multiple cloud storage options:

Provider	Description
Google Drive	Full OAuth2 integration with your Google account
WebDAV	Connect to any WebDAV server (Nextcloud, ownCloud, etc.)
FTP/FTPS	Traditional FTP with optional TLS/SSL encryption
SMB/Network Folder	Windows network shares and NAS devices

Features:

• Upload, download, and sync your backups to the cloud
• Smart Sync Status shows which files are synced, local-only, or need attention
• Configurable auto-sync with bandwidth limits and storage quotas
• Easy configuration with dedicated setup dialogs for each provider

🛡️ Digitally Signed & Verified

SaveState is officially signed via SignPath — no more "Unknown Publisher" warnings or SmartScreen blocks on Windows. Install with confidence.

🎮 Universal Launcher Support

Works with any PC game launcher — not just Steam! Drag and drop executables or shortcuts from:

• Steam, Epic Games, GOG Galaxy, Battle.net, Ubisoft Connect, EA App, and more

🕹️ Deep RetroArch Integration

Full support for RetroArch with a streamlined setup:

• Detects your RetroArch installation and cores
• Guided setup to select a core and identify game/save files
• Intelligent path resolution for saves (standard, XDG, Flatpak, Snap layouts)

⚙️ Per-Profile Backup Settings

Fine-tune backup behavior for each game individually:

• Override global settings for max backups, compression mode, max source size, and disk space checks

🐧 Linux AppImage & Portable Mode

• AppImage: Single file, no dependencies — just download, make executable, and run
• Portable Mode: Store all configs in your backup folder for USB drive usage

📦 Core Backup Features

• One-click backup & restore with compressed .zip archives
• Automatic rotation with configurable backup limits per profile
• Direct restore from ZIP — restore saves even without a profile
• Data Safety: Automatic configuration backups protect against corruption
• Inline profile editing via right-click context menu
• Minimize to tray for silent background auto-backups

🎯 Smart Save Detection

The detection engine is intelligent and thorough:

• Deep Scan recursively searches candidate directories when standard scan fails
• Fuzzy Matching handles abbreviated titles and naming variations
• Steam Awareness avoids false positives in Steam Userdata folders

Visuals

Drag & Drop from Any Launcher:

Supported Emulators

SaveState automatically detects save data locations for a wide range of emulators:

RetroArch ★	Ryujinx	Yuzu	Rpcs3
Dolphin ★	DuckStation	PPSSPP	Citra
Azahar	mGBA	Snes9x	DeSmuME
Cemu	Flycast	ShadPs4	SameBoy
PCSX2 *	Xenia	Eden (yuzu)	melonDS
Gopher64	Citron	Vita3K	Mednafen/Mednaffe
ymir

★ Enhanced integration with guided setup

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* PlayStation 2 memory card functionality in SaveState utilizes and adapts code from the mymcplusplus project, which is based on mymc+ by Florian Märkl and the original mymc by Ross Ridge. The mymcplusplus source code is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. SaveState, including these derived components, is also licensed under GPLv3.

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Supported Launchers

SaveState integrates with the following game launchers for automatic game detection:

Launcher	Description
Playnite	Open-source library manager that unifies all your games
Heroic Games Launcher	Open-source launcher for Epic, GOG, and Amazon Games

Simply drag & drop a game shortcut from your launcher onto SaveState to automatically detect save locations.

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How Save Search Works (Heuristics)

The following diagram illustrates the main steps that SaveState follows when attempting to locate a game's save folder:

Log Console:

Getting Started

Get SaveState up and running on your system.

No installation wizard, no dependencies to install, no initial setup. Just download the release, extract, and run. The app creates its config file automatically on first launch.

Prerequisites

• Operating System: Windows (tested on Windows 10/11). Relies on Windows-specific libraries for shortcut handling.
• Operating System: Linux (tested on Ubuntu 24.x LTS)
• Python: Version 3.10 or higher recommended. (3.13 work fine)
• Pip: Python package installer (usually included with Python).

Installation

Option 1: Download Release (Recommended)

Windows

1. Go to the Releases Page
2. Download SaveState_vX.X.X_Win.zip
3. Extract and run — no installation required!

Linux (AppImage)

1. Go to the Releases Page
2. Download SaveState.tar.gz
3. Extract the .AppImage file
4. Make it executable: chmod +x SaveState*.AppImage
5. Run it — no dependencies needed!

Option 2: Running from Source (for development or advanced users)

1. Ensure you have Python 3.10+ and Git installed.
2. Clone the repository:

   git clone [https://github.com/Matteo842/SaveState.git](https://github.com/Matteo842/SaveState.git)

3. Navigate into the project directory:

   cd SaveState

4. (Recommended) Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python -m venv venv
   # On Windows
   .\venv\Scripts\activate
   # On Linux/macOS
   source venv/bin/activate

5. Install the required dependencies (see Dependencies section below):

   pip install -r requirements.txt

6. Run the application:

   python main.py

Usage

First launch? The app works immediately with sensible defaults. You can optionally customize settings, but it's not required.

1. Launch SaveState.exe or run python main.py.
2. Configure Settings (Optional): Click the Settings button to customize the Base Backup Path (defaults to a SaveState_Backups folder). You can also adjust max backups, compression, etc. — but the defaults work fine for most users.
3. Add Profiles:
   • Drag & Drop (Recommended): Drag any game shortcut (.lnk, .url, .desktop) from your Desktop or launcher onto the main window. SaveState will detect the game and automatically search for its save location.
   • Multi Profile: Drop a folder containing multiple games onto the main window. You can review, filter, and add all detected profiles at once.
   • Steam: Click Manage Steam to see your installed Steam games. Select a game and click Configure — SaveState will automatically detect the save path for most titles.
   • Minecraft: Click New Profile... and select "Select from Minecraft World..." to choose a world directly. A profile will be created using the world name and folder path.
   • Manual Entry (Fallback): If automatic detection fails, click New Profile..., enter a name, and provide the full path to the game's save folder manually.
4. Manage Profiles:
   • Select a profile in the list.
   • Click Backup to back it up.
   • Click Restore to restore from a previous backup.
   • Click Manage Backups to view and delete specific backup archives for that profile.
   • Right-click on a profile to access the context menu: edit profile settings or create a desktop shortcut for quick backups.
   • To delete a profile, select it and click the trash icon that appears on the right (this does not delete existing backup files).
5. Other Actions:
   • Use Open Backup Folder to quickly open the base backup location in Explorer.
   • Double Click on a profile to open the save path in Explorer.
   • Toggle the Log Console visibility using the terminal icon button.
   • Toggle the Theme using the sun/moon icon button.

Dependencies

This project relies on the following Python packages:

• Required:

  • PySide6: For the graphical user interface (Qt for Python).
  • winshell: Used for reading .lnk shortcut files and finding special Windows folders like the Desktop.
  • pywin32: A dependency for winshell (and used directly for creating shortcuts via COM). (Note: Installation might sometimes require specific steps or precompiled binaries depending on your Python setup).

• Optional (for enhanced features):

  • vdf: Used to parse Valve's VDF/ACF files to get more accurate Steam game names and library information. If not installed, Steam detection will still work but might use less precise names.
  • nbtlib: Used to read Minecraft's level.dat NBT files to get the actual world names. If not installed, the world's folder name will be used as the profile name instead.
  • thefuzz: It uses Levenshtein Distance to calculate the differences between sequences.

Development

(Screenshot: Development.png)

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No time to fate, save your state!

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🔐 Code Signing & Security

This project is supported by the SignPath Foundation for free code signing.

The artifact is signed by SignPath.io using a certificate from the SignPath Foundation.

Legal

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service

License

Distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See the LICENSEfile for more information.