How to Upload a Singleplayer World to Your Valheim Server

Transfer a Valheim singleplayer world to your dedicated server, including how to move from Steam Cloud to local storage first.

You can upload a world from your local game (or another server) to continue playing it on your XGamingServer Valheim server. The process is the same whether the source world was singleplayer or co-op.

Find Your Local World Files

A Valheim world is two files that must be uploaded together:

MyWorld.fwl

MyWorld.db

Move from Steam Cloud to Local (if needed)

If your worlds are saved to Steam Cloud, you need to move them to local storage first.

Open Valheim

Launch the game from Steam.

Open the world selection screen

Click New Game to see your world list.

Move to Local

Select your world and click Move to Local. The world is now stored on disk instead of Steam Cloud.

Local Save Path (Windows)

%userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local\

Tip: Press Win + R, paste the path above, and press Enter to open the folder directly.

Upload to Your Server

Stop the server

In the XGamingServer Panel, go to Console and stop your server.

Open the worlds directory

Click Files in the sidebar and navigate to your server's worlds directory (typically worlds_local/).

Upload both files

Upload both the .fwl and .db files together. They must have matching names (case-sensitive on Linux).

Set the world name

Go to Startup in the sidebar and set the World Name variable to match your uploaded files without the extension.

For example, if you uploaded MyWorld.fwl and MyWorld.db, set:

MyWorld

Note: Character data (skills, inventory, map exploration) is stored on the player's local device, not in the world file. Your character carries over to the server with everything intact, but other players' map exploration starts fresh.

Common Issues

Problem	Fix
World doesn't load	The World Name in Startup must match the file name exactly (case-sensitive on Linux). Check for trailing spaces
Only one of the two files uploaded	Re-upload — both `.fwl` AND `.db` are required
"Wrong world loading"	Another world with the same name may exist in the worlds folder. Delete duplicates
"Password matches world name" error	Valheim refuses to start when these are equal. Change one of them in Startup
Server creates a fresh world instead	The world name doesn't match. Verify in Files that the uploaded files exist with the expected name

Download Your Server World

To go the other direction (server → local):

Force a save

Connect to the server, press F5, and type:

save

Download the files

In Files, navigate to the worlds folder and download both .fwl and .db files.

Place in your local folder

Put the files in your local worlds_local folder. The world appears in Valheim's world selection screen on next launch.