[Steam Cloud] Option for Automatic local save backups

[JellyPuff]

If you are using Steam Cloud saving, (or honestly even if you don't as long as Steam is aware of the savefile directories), you should be able to schedule automatic local savegame backups and restore them, if necessary. Like when to backup saves (e.g. "Daily, Weekly, "Before syncing with Steam Cloud", etc.) and how many backups, before the oldest one is being deleted.

It would be a rather small feature with a potentially big impact on Steam Cloud errors, both on Steam's end or user-induced. Of course, this would also help for other save-data related issues not involving Steam, such as data corruption from third-party tools like AV's.
An automatic backup feature may also cut down on Steam Support requests regarding savefile-corruption, when Steam Cloud is in use (or in general, Users might still consider it an issue with Steam even when this may not be true).

Thanks in advance, in case this feature is considered.

[BJWyler]

There are dedicated backup programs, including one that comes with Windows that are made with the express purpose of backing up local files on your machine. It's actually kind of recommended, and has been for decades, that you do so on a regular basis.

[JellyPuff]

It's just way more convenient having a backup feature, which is specialized for savefiles within Steam. Steam has the advantage of being aware of the save-data locations for games, which have the Steam Cloud feature enabled.

That being said, my suggestion is not meant to prevent data loss in general, like from a failing drive. Steam Cloud is already sort of a good feature for that. But Steam Cloud itself is the main reason, i'm suggesting this, since it itself can sometimes be the problem related to losing your in-game progress. It would mostly remove it as a potential point of failure, if you can set it up to make at least one local backup of any save synced with the cloud, before doing so.
If there are any Steam Cloud errors, Steam could just notice the backup with the same timestamp and ask the user to restore it from there.

[BJWyler]

Unless of course, steam cloud also screws up the local backup in the process. Another reason why I always manually make backup copies of my most important saves, in addition to the normal system backups.

At the end of the day there is no need to turn Steam into a Swiss Army Knife and add more bloat to an already bloated client when there are already solutions out there designed for that specific purpose that are quick and easy to set up and configure.

[Ben Lubar]

Games already let you rotate saves (or at least the ones I play do).

[JellyPuff]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Unless of course, steam cloud also screws up the local backup in the process. Another reason why I always manually make backup copies of my most important saves, in addition to the normal system backups.

You overestimate how many people are able to easely locate and manually backup their savefiles. Or even consider this to be good practice.
Heck, it's still tedious if you are more tech-savvy, because there isn't a standard for save-file locations. You can catch most by just backing up your user folder or AppData + Documents, but some are at more exotic places you can't possibly know, without looking it up.
Also, you'd still risk loosing a lot of progress potentially, if you don't backup after most gaming sessions.

It's just such a small QoL thing i'm suggesting here in regards to the Steam Cloud, not a huge feature that should have any meaningful impact on how Steam works or performs.I'm surprised, you bring up bloat, since most of Steam's features just make it a great service, like Steam Input, pre-compiled OGL/Vulkan shaders or Proton just to name a few.

Originally posted by Ben Lubar:

Games already let you rotate saves (or at least the ones I play do).

Most games do not have this feature. I only have one game currently installed, which does this. Well, technically 2 more, but only because of anti-cheat mods i've installed for these that make local save backups to reduce the impact of malicious cheaters breaking people's savefiles.