how do i make a backup of my save file?

[dwite40]

How do you make a backup of your save files?

[Malidictus]

Would have been nice if the Beta thread had an explanation for that, yes. Your save files are located in:

%appdata%\..\LocalLow\Red Dot Games\Car Mechanic Simulator 2018

Near as I can tell, your profiles will be stored in folders called profile0, profile1, etc. depending on how many profiles you have. If you want to know which is which, you can open the profile folder, track down a name.txt file and that'll tell you the profile name. Copy the entire folder somewhere else and that'll be your backup.

For some reason, the game does backups of its own in:

%appdata%\..\LocalLow\Red Dot Games\Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 Backup

I don't know what those are used for, how they're created or when they're needed. If the Beta suggests you make a backup of your save file, it probably means an ADDITIONAL backup besides the automatic one.

*edit*
If you're just looking to test the Beta, I think you can get away with creating a throwaway account just for that. You can either call it "cms2018promo" (a cheat code which unlocks everything) or use the Free mode the Beta supposedly comes with. I presume your save file won't be overwritten if you don't actually load it up and save over it, but don't take my word for it.

[m3c0]

@dwite40

Long story short:
You just go to your CMS2018 folder with your current profile folder, copy that folder to another place and if needed later on, you copy/paste it back. Thats it.

X:\Users\XXX\AppData\LocalLow\Red Dot Games\Car Mechanic Simulator 2018, where X is your harddrive and XXX - your name.

PS: You need to make manual back up, because if you want to play the new beta version of the game, your profileXbackup will be overwritten too when you save your game in the beta version.

@Malidictus

The profilebackup folder in your main CMS2018 folder was a very useful and really needed thingy. There wasn't such a thing before and many many many people (me inclusive) lost their progress after a PC crash or because of another issue (steam cloud synchronisation problems). And those people had to start from scratch.
In this folder there was a copy of the info about your last saved game. Even if you lose your progress because of corrupted files in your profile folder, you could just use the files from this backup folder.

Now they obviously decided to move the whole Backup thing in another folder - Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 Backup. Because, in my case, the last backup in my old profilebackup folder was from 25.01.18.
Newest backups go to the new profilebackup in the new CMS2018 Backup folder.

[Malidictus]

My question was more how a backup would help in those circumstances. Wouldn't a broken save file also break the backup when it was copied over? Or is the backup only updated less frequently, or not synched with the Cloud or something? Just curious, is all.

[m3c0]

I think the backup folder gets updated when you successfully save and exit the game (you go in the main menu).
If your PC crashes for example and your profile gets corrupted, this wont affect the files in the profileXbackup folder, because you didn't quit the game properly. You will lose your current work ofc, but you can load your last working saved game from the backup folder.

I had such a thing once after this backup feature was implemented in CMS2018 and it worked just fine. By the way, this feature was there even in CMS2015 and it worked fine too.

Nevertheless, I still keep backing up manually my files. Just to be sure.

Can't tell anything about the cloud synchro thing, because I disabled it months ago because of all the issues with it. I guess it works now, but again, I don't need it and I won't risk using it.

[Malidictus]

Oh, I lost no fewer than two save files back around release :) One save file refused to load for some reason, the other I accidentally deleted because the "Delete Profile" button has no confirmation or feedback and I hit it on accident trying to get rid of another profile. So I appreciate the backup :)

[m3c0]

Haha, lol, that hurts.. No, I mean, I dont need the steam cloud synchronisation. The backup thingy is very nice to have, especially for new players.