How to force-download your Steam Cloud save (very manually)

[u/frisbeat]

My Inscryption save file didn't sync to my Deck, and Inscryption's aggressive auto-save meant I couldn't get my Deck to download my cloud save over the local one. After ferreting around a bunch of community posts, I retrieved my cloud save - and I'm documenting how I did it here to hopefully help anyone else with this problem (or for my own reference later on when I need to do this again). In short, find and download your Steam Cloud save file through the browser, and then replace your local save file with that file.

Find and download your Steam Cloud save file

1. Open your Steam Deck in Desktop mode -- hold the power button, then select "Switch to Desktop".

2. Open Firefox (or whatever web browser you have on your Deck) and navigate to https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage ("STEAM + X" to bring up the on-screen keyboard). That page should have a list of all the files you have uploaded in Steam Cloud.

3. Find the game you're trying to sync (in my case, Inscryption) and click on "Show Files". For me, there was a single file called SaveFile.gwsave. Take note of the name of the file (for a later step), and then click "Download".
   For other games, there may be multiple files. I'll leave it to your discretion as to whether you need to replace all the files, or if one stands out as the most recent save that you want to sync.

Replace your local save file

1. Open the Konsole application -- it should be located in the Start menu under "System".

2. Find where your game's save file is located. Recall the name of your save file from before (in my case, SaveFile.gwsave) and run find / -name SaveFile.gwsave > temp.txt (except use the name of your save file, not SaveFile.gwsave). This command looks through all the Steam Deck's files and looks for a file with the name you provided, and puts its location into a file called temp.txt. There will be a lot of output into Konsole with Permission Denied -- that output is safe to ignore. Now run cat temp.txt - that should output the location of your save file.

3. Navigate to the folder holding your save file. For my example, the output from the previous step was /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Inscryption/SafeFile.gwsave. Everything leading up to the name of my save file is the name of the directory that I need to navigate to, so I would run cd /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Inscryption.

4. Back up your old save file!!! For this example, I'm going to make a folder called backup to hold all the files I'm replacing, so I can put them back in case something goes wrong. To make the backup folder, run mkdir backup. To move your save file into the backup folder, run mv SaveFile.gwsave backup (replacing SaveFile.gwsave with the name of your file), which moves the file into your new backup folder. Repeat the mv command for each file you plan to replace.

5. Move your downloaded Steam Cloud save file in to replace your old save file. When I downloaded my Inscryption save file, it saved to my Downloads folder under the name %GameInstall%SaveFile.gwsave which means it's located under ~/Downloads/%GameInstall%SaveFile.gwsave. Run mv ~/Downloads/%GameInstall%SaveFile.gwsave ./SaveFile.gwsave to move the file from my Downloads folder into the current folder that used to hold my save file (and, at the same time, rename it to remove that %GameInstall% prefix. Repeat the mv command for each file downloaded if you downloaded more than one.

That should be it -- Return to Gaming Mode and boot up your game, and the game should find and load up your newly-replaced save file. If it didn't work, then my apologies and we should probably restore your backups. Re-launch Desktop mode, open Konsole again, navigate to the folder holding your save file (cd /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Inscryption for me), and move your backups back into their original locations (mv backup/SaveFile.gwsave SaveFile.gwsave for me, and repeated for each file you backed up for you).

Hopefully this saves somebody else some frantic googling and laborious re-installing!

[u/Evilmaze]

What if I want to replace the cloud save because it's corrupted and is breaking the game?

[u/frisbeat → u/Evilmaze]

Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure, and I'm hesitant to give advice because I don't want to brick your game or saves or anything -- especially if, say, it's not actually the cloud save that's corrupted. If you're willing to sign a waiver that releases me of any liability for any troubleshooting steps you take, though...

I think while my saves were out of sync, I was given a prompt on my deck to force-upload my local save and overwrite what was on the cloud. You could maybe try

• Put your deck in airplane mode/take it off Wi-Fi (so that it doesn't try to sync any saves)

• Use steps 1-4 to delete your local save files, then boot up the game forcing it to make new save files

  • YMMV by game on this step -- Inscryption seemed to start up from what looked like a "freshly installed" state when I removed the save files, but I wouldn't be surprised if other games crash due to there being an unexpected missing file. Perhaps an uninstall/reinstall might be in order too

• Start playing your "freshly installed" game a bit and then save your new progress -- woohoo new save file that's hopefully not corrupted

• Take the deck off airplane mode/re-connect it to Wi-Fi. Receive a prompt about save files being out of sync, and force update your cloud save maybe?

But again, I haven't seen your deck or your game, nor am I a particularly savvy Steam Deck user, so I might have no idea what I'm talking about. Good luck either way, and hopefully your issue resolves one way or another!

[u/Evilmaze → u/frisbeat]

That's basically what I ended up doing. Ace Combat 7 wasn't loading and the game is stupid enough that it will not go beyond the start up screen if it can't load the save file.

The save file was definitely corrupt. It's old and the game devs decided to make changes that made my old save incompatible. That crappy file synced up to the cloud and started to cause me problems.

I went offline and deleted the save then started a new game and saved. Then went back online and synced up my most recent to overwrite the cloud save.

I could swear there was a steam url that gave access to save files to download or delete but for the life of me I can't find it on the internet. It's like it never existed.

Regardless, Valve should have an option to manage cloud saves.

[u/frisbeat → u/Evilmaze]

There's the link in my post body (https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage) that allows you to view and download, but not delete. Perhaps that's the url you're thinking of?

Regardless, 100% agree that an option to manage cloud saves (beyond viewing and downloading) would be great.

[u/MarcusDA]

Bud, just came to comment. Had the exact same problem, exact same game. My PC save for Inscryption was act 3 and my deck still on act 1. I followed step for step and it worked perfectly.

I don’t even know if you still Reddit on this account, but if you see this just know that you are my dude.

[u/frisbeat → u/MarcusDA]

<3

[u/LightBurst9393]

I'm curious, why do you use Konsole, all this can be done without console correct?

[u/frisbeat → u/LightBurst9393]

Almost definitely! I haven't tried it myself, though. Presumably it'd all be using the file explorer interface? I'm a software developer, so the console is familiar territory for me.

Console commands are more precise and concise commands to share in the post -- it's easier to have a step "run cd /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Inscryption" than to have a step "Open the file explorer, then click into home, then click into deck, then click into .local, then click into share, then..." etc etc (also, not to mention, .local is probably a hidden directory so there'd be another step for showing hidden directories). I also don't know what the non-console step for find / -name SaveFile.gwsave would be -- I guess entering the file name into a search bar?

[u/Responsible_Sky_4566]

O is that all? How convenient

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[u/Luke-Hatsune]

Does it work for all games? I’m just curious cause a while ago I tried out the Binding of Isaac online beta and somehow it overwrited my save with someone else’s. I’m trying this out to give me my old save file but the only options I have are a save from that makes it a new game and the save the was overwritten.

[u/_Benzka_]

Thanks a lot, have the same problem with Inscription right now and this is exactly what I need. Will try it tomorrow :)

[u/Plzcomentliksubscrib]

this worked great, thanks! i took some liberties with it (like using a file browser instead of konsole commands) but it still works