keeping save games when deleting game

[kae]

a basic question: if i remove a game from my computer, because maybe i'm not playing it a lot right now and i need the disc space, does Steam keep the save games? is it possible to do that, in case i want to pick up later?

[Snapjak]

Most games won't delete saves when you uninstall it.

If you want to be sure, use something like gamesave manager and backup your saves.

[VaLiuM]

That really depends, some games save directly into the game folder itself, most of the time, games uninstall completely in this case due to the folder being wiped completely.

Some games save into Documents or under AppData folder or somewhere else on the drive, which should survive an uninstall.

Steam also has a remote folder for games, some games save there too and these also should survive an uninstall.

Then there are games that save directly into the cloud, which is the safest place imo when it comes to uninstalling because they even work on another platform or computer.

So in some cases your save might be gone, if you aren't sure where exactly a game saves the progress before uninstalling it, you can use for example https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home or ask directly in the game hub of the corresponding game.

While the suggestion from Snapjak is handy, it should be noted that GSM only supports so many games, the rest is on you to find and backup manually.

[kae]

thanks.
so do you think that if i located the save folder and copied the files, and then just put them back into the folder later after reinstalling, they'll be intact and work as normal?

[VaLiuM]

Yup, should be fine if they reside at the exact same spot as before.

[OddDo]

Doesn't Steam Cloud take care of this, for games that support it?

[Jack Schitt]

What Valium said is not always the case. It's actually very rare all files are removed completely when you uninstall through the client. It also doesn't always delete every file and directory if you uninstall through Windows. I'm not a Mac user so I don't know for sure about mac but I assume it's the same. When you uninstall something there's usually always something left behind.

Anyway, most saves for games are either in the game's folder directory it self, in it's AppData folder, and some Steam games that have the SteamCloud save the games in the cloud. Also, if you're playing a game that requires a login and being online the saves are most likely online too so you won't have to save those although you might want to save any kind of profile or item file just in case.

For the games that do have a save file on your computer, yes, you can backup the save file by saving it somewhere else and when you re-install put the save file back where it goes and it'll work.

If your goal is to conserve or free up hard drive space when you uninstall go to the steamapps directory and make sure all of the files and folders were deleted with the uninstall. You'll find that 9 times out of 10 something is left behind.