Transfer Game Save to a different account on the same PC

[theCannonBallZ]

Built my kid their first PC. She has weeks worth of progress in through playing on my account previous to building her PC. I originally installed Steam on the new PC with my account to run tests, but yesterday she set up her own account and family sharing.

When she starts the game on her account via family sharing there are no visible game saves to load. From other posts I've read, all game saves are in the same folder for all accounts on the same pc unless I misunderstood something. I checked, all saves are in the appdata folder from my Steam account, and accessible if loaded on her computer via my account.

Yes, it sounds very confusing, but I hope that makes at least a bit of sense.

I'll probably buy her her own copy of the game next time it's on sale(she already has it on her ipad and Switch too, haha) but for now it would be nice to just be able to access her own game saves from my account via the family sharing feature.

[Maya-Neko]

I don't know if that works, but it's worth a try: you can try to create a new farm on your kids PC and then look into where the new save files get copied to and replace the respective file.

[Nakos]

Stardew Valley save data locations: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Saves

I suggest making a backup first (of the ENTIRE folder/directory), then manually copying it over.

[theCannonBallZ]

Thank you both for your suggestions, they weren't the solution, but helped lead me in the right direction:

Her original save game files were created on my PC previous to hers being built, so I"m wondering if THAT may have been the issue, possibly related to how steam-cloud works regarding save data on a secondary pc.

So, because of how Family Sharing works, you have to have BOTH accounts on the PC sharing the library. It seems that because she downloaded the game and played on MY account with her save files before she created her own account that (obviously) created a save game file folder, with my saves, linked to MY game.

Because Family sharing allows the "borrower" of the game to earn achievements in that game independently on their own account (which carries over if they purchase the game for themselves at a later date) Steam must create some sort of... barrier or tag(?) to keep saves and achievements isolated (this all happens even with steam cloud disabled FYI)

While loading up the game via her account did allow her to create a NEW save, the saves from mine were absent no matter what.

SOLUTION:

1. I completely uninstalled Stardew Valley from her pc.
2. on MY pc I copied only her save game files onto a USB flash drive
3. Opened the game save folder location as noted in the wiki on her pc.
4. deleted any files that were within the stardewvalley\saves folder on her pc
5. copied her save files from my other pc into the stardewvalley\saves folder on her pc
6. loaded the game up on her account and BOOM! there they were

Hope this helps someone else in the future!

[souless]

Originally posted by theCannonBallZ:

Thank you both for your suggestions, they weren't the solution, but helped lead me in the right direction:

Her original save game files were created on my PC previous to hers being built, so I"m wondering if THAT may have been the issue, possibly related to how steam-cloud works regarding save data on a secondary pc.

So, because of how Family Sharing works, you have to have BOTH accounts on the PC sharing the library. It seems that because she downloaded the game and played on MY account with her save files before she created her own account that (obviously) created a save game file folder, with my saves, linked to MY game.

Because Family sharing allows the "borrower" of the game to earn achievements in that game independently on their own account (which carries over if they purchase the game for themselves at a later date) Steam must create some sort of... barrier or tag(?) to keep saves and achievements isolated (this all happens even with steam cloud disabled FYI)

While loading up the game via her account did allow her to create a NEW save, the saves from mine were absent no matter what.

SOLUTION:

1. I completely uninstalled Stardew Valley from her pc.
2. on MY pc I copied only her save game files onto a USB flash drive
3. Opened the game save folder location as noted in the wiki on her pc.
4. deleted any files that were within the stardewvalley\saves folder on her pc
5. copied her save files from my other pc into the stardewvalley\saves folder on her pc
6. loaded the game up on her account and BOOM! there they were

Hope this helps someone else in the future!

This worked for me. Thank you so much :D

[theCannonBallZ]

Originally posted by souless:

Originally posted by theCannonBallZ:

Thank you both for your suggestions, they weren't the solution, but helped lead me in the right direction:

Her original save game files were created on my PC previous to hers being built, so I"m wondering if THAT may have been the issue, possibly related to how steam-cloud works regarding save data on a secondary pc.

So, because of how Family Sharing works, you have to have BOTH accounts on the PC sharing the library. It seems that because she downloaded the game and played on MY account with her save files before she created her own account that (obviously) created a save game file folder, with my saves, linked to MY game.

Because Family sharing allows the "borrower" of the game to earn achievements in that game independently on their own account (which carries over if they purchase the game for themselves at a later date) Steam must create some sort of... barrier or tag(?) to keep saves and achievements isolated (this all happens even with steam cloud disabled FYI)

While loading up the game via her account did allow her to create a NEW save, the saves from mine were absent no matter what.

SOLUTION:

1. I completely uninstalled Stardew Valley from her pc.
2. on MY pc I copied only her save game files onto a USB flash drive
3. Opened the game save folder location as noted in the wiki on her pc.
4. deleted any files that were within the stardewvalley\saves folder on her pc
5. copied her save files from my other pc into the stardewvalley\saves folder on her pc
6. loaded the game up on her account and BOOM! there they were

Hope this helps someone else in the future!

This worked for me. Thank you so much :D

So glad I could help!!