How do I transfer save data?

[FILE]

I’m getting a Steam Deck, but there’s one thing that I’m worried about. Getting my saves to it. I travel a lot, so I need something to keep me busy. And I play a lot offline, so cloud saves won’t work. But, is there a way to download my cloud saves? (I’m also not gonna replay all of my games, I don’t wanna beat chapter 9 of Celeste again)

Thanks!

[rawWwRrr]

If cloud saves don't work, how are you going to get them from the cloud?

Can't you just have your client go online long enough to sync a could save? Then the Deck would be able to retrieve it when you play that game on it?

The whole idea of the cloud saving is to allow for the data to travel with you. If you're offline that defeats the purpose.

[Kargor]

While you can certainly download the cloudsaves -- even without extra tools, just from https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage -- the real question is "what's the point": if you're not online, that link isn't going to work either... and the web-interface doesn't allow uploads either.

It would generally be easier to use Steam to sync up the files when you're online again; you might have to launch the game to trigger Steams download, but whatever other tool you'd be using instead requires some form of "running" as well...

[FILE]

I mean, do cloud saves download to the deck?

[Lithurge]

Originally posted by FILE1Gaming:

I mean, do cloud saves download to the deck?

Yes. The whole point of Steam cloud is to allow you to transfer saves between machines. It would be silly to not allow it to work with the Deck.

[Kargor]

Originally posted by FILE1Gaming:

I mean, do cloud saves download to the deck?

Depends a bit on the game and the setup, but the general answer is "of course they do". Why wouldn't they?

Now, the why wouldn't they. Observe.

[***] command> list-files 440540
440540 (Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition) has 13 files:
   "%WinAppDataLocalLow%Stegosoft Games/Ara Fell/Save02 - c3ac5083-1b33-413d-a843-61da89d9d515.json"        | 735.3 KiB | 2020-11-30 00:05:50 | Windows
...
   "%WinAppDataLocalLow%Stegosoft Games/Ara Fell/Autosave - epilogue.json.meta"                             | 8.8 KiB   | 2020-11-30 21:41:08 | Windows
listed 13 files with a total size of 2.3 MiB

[***] command> list-files 692850
692850 (Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night) has 22 files:
   "%WinAppDataLocal%BloodstainedRotN/Saved/SaveGames/Story_Slot13.sav" | 177.4 KiB | 2024-07-14 18:07:46 | All
...
   "%WinAppDataLocal%BloodstainedRotN/Saved/SaveGames/System_Slot.sav"  | 11.2 KiB  | 2024-07-25 22:40:37 | All

As you can see, the first one shows "Windows", while the second one shows "All". That doesn't mean much, though -- if there is no native Linux version for a game, the Deck uses a Windows emulator to run it, and that will, of course, make it use the "Windows" cloud files as well.

While I can't verify it one way or the other, the only situation that I can see for cloud files not working is a game that has a native Linux version, and ALSO keeps separate saves for "Linux" and "Windows" platforms, instead of tagging them as "All". And, frankly, I believe that's a rare thing -- not only are native Linux versions rare to start with, it would also be stupid for the game developer to do it like that since it would prevent sharing between the platforms.