Why is my save file taking up so much space?

[caseyrolltide24]

Recently I've started playing on a new survival mode save, and its taking up too much space on my computer. In just the short time I've been playing, my PC's free storage space has decreased from 26 GB to 22 GB. The world menu says my save is only 39 MB.

What is causing this? I haven't even left the Earth-Like planet yet, and I haven't done much mining. I do have several NPC mods, such as EEM, but have only seen one grid as of right now. I really don't want to abandon this save, but I don't know what to do.

EDIT: Also, I sometimes get more free storage space when I close the game.

EDIT 2: It seems that my free storage space decreases when I actually open the world. Maybe it's one of the larger mods?

[Kaii-Killer]

To see the real size of your save files you can find them at the following location.

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers

[Dan2D3D]

HI, that is the Backup feature, it adds 5X the world save in so maybe disable the backups system.

OR

Create a copy to remove all Backups, it creates a copy without the backup saves, here is the how to :

1 - Select your save.
2 - Click the "Save as" button on the left.
3 - Change the save name to create a copy.

= The new copy will contain only the Main save.

[Dan2D3D]

I will add :

The Backup feature is in the advanced world settings and I strongly recommend to Blueprint all your creations and publish those Bp on the Workshop.

= This way you will never lose your creations, because saved on the Workshop, and they will not use your space on the C: Drive.

[Dan2D3D]

Note

I recommend to remove the not needed apps installed on your C: Drive to make more space because 26 GB is very very low.

Just watching YouTube videos can full that space in the internet Temp files if you only have 26 GB available.

ME = I keep about 100GB of free space on the C: Drive

[Ronin Planetary Industries]

There's more than one file related to your saved game.
Every planet has a file with the extensino .vx2. Everytime you alter the voxels by mining or crashing something in the planet, that file size increases.

Everytime you alter a procedurally generated asteroid, it creates its own seperate file.

The "Sandbox" .sbc, .sbs, and .sbsB5 files can get pretty big. They hold all the grid data you've created in that save.

You can generate a TON of data by simply playing the game. If you're running a server with multiple players... it gets big pretty quickly.

Lastly, ever Backup is a copy of the entire directory of files. If you have 2 backups then you have 3x the amount of data. 9 backups... 10x etc.

[caseyrolltide24]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

HI, that is the Backup feature, it adds 5X the world save in so maybe disable the backups system.

OR

Create a copy to remove all Backups, it creates a copy without the backup saves, here is the how to :

1 - Select your save.
2 - Click the "Save as" button on the left.
3 - Change the save name to create a copy.

= The new copy will contain only the Main save.

The thing is, my C: drive space is bouncing all over the place. Last night when I logged off, it was 22 gigs free. Now its 26.

I'm thinking this is because the game is unpacking all the data in the save file, but my major concern is that its going to get so large that I can't save anymore.

[caseyrolltide24]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Note

I recommend to remove the not needed apps installed on your C: Drive to make more space because 26 GB is very very low.

Just watching YouTube videos can full that space in the internet Temp files if you only have 26 GB available.

ME = I keep about 100GB of free space on the C: Drive

I'm not sure how to find all these files. I've searched everywhere and all of the answers I can find are either outdated or simply don't work.

How would I find the largest files on my PC on Windows 10?

[Dan2D3D]

Not sure what you installed so I could not say, and can't tell you to uninstall important data, I mean you should be fine on that side if you don't know about it, that means you never installed specific apps in your PC.

ME = I have a lot of images/familly pictures, videos and apps I have downloaded, those I keep in my Windows folders like "Download, My Documents, My videos, Images, etch ,,,

Those folders ^ would be the first to empty, well I transfer (copy/paste) to another Drive first and delete their content once backup done to give more space on my C: Drive.

[glabifrons]

Look in the directory mentioned by Kaii-Killer, the in the directory with your save's name. Under that will be a Backups directory with a full copy of each prior version up to the number of backups you have specified. I think it's 5 by default, saving every 5 minutes. Any changes are due to it deleting the oldest one to stay at 5 when saving a new one.

That is, unless you've adjusted it. You could change it to autosave a backup every 15 minutes, and only keep 2, for example.

To change it, go into Advanced after selecting your game in the Load menu.