How Backups Work

Automatic Backups

Every server is backed up once a day, automatically, and there is nothing to switch on. By default the last 7 backups or the last 7 days are kept, whichever limit is reached first.

They appear in their own "Automatic Backups" section on the Backups page, with the reason each one was taken in the Type column: scheduled for the daily copy, pre restore for the safety copy described below.

Automatic backups share the server's 30 GB with your manual backups, but they give way first: when the storage is full, the oldest automatic backup is removed to make room, and a manual backup is never removed to make room for anything. A busy automatic schedule therefore cannot crowd out the backups you took yourself.

The retention numbers above are the platform default. They can be changed — how many to keep, how many days (1 to 30), an overall size ceiling, and whether a scheduled backup should wait until nobody is playing — through the Customer API rather than from the panel. An update changes only the settings it names; anything you leave out keeps its current value. See Customer API Reference.

The two safety copies

Extra copies are taken automatically at moments when something is about to overwrite or delete your files. Each one is an ordinary backup: it appears in your list, it is encrypted like every other, and you can restore it.

Before a restore

An automatic backup of your current save is taken immediately before a restore overwrites it, so there is always a copy of what you had a moment ago. It appears in your list as pre restore and it is exempt from retention — it is never the backup that gets deleted to make room for a newer automatic backup or for a manual one. It is removed on its own 30 days after it is taken.

Before Wipe Server or Delete Savegames

Wipe Server and Delete Savegames on the Admin tab each take an automatic backup first, and stop rather than go ahead if that backup cannot be made, checked and stored. It appears in your list as pre wipe or pre delete savegames, named for example "Before wipe, 2026-10-08 12:34 UTC", and like the pre restore copy it is never the backup that gets deleted to make room for a newer automatic backup or for a manual one. It is removed on its own 30 days after it is taken, so to undo the action, restore that backup from the Backups page within that time.

Before a game update

A backup is also taken immediately before a game update is applied, and your server is left untouched, still on its old build, if it cannot be made. It appears in your list as pre update, named for example "Before game update, 2026-10-08 12:34 UTC", and you can restore it from the Backups page. Unlike the copies above it follows the ordinary retention rules, so it can be deleted to make room for a newer automatic backup or for a manual one.

Manual Backups

On the Backups page, optionally fill in "Backup label (optional)" and "Note (optional)", then click "Create Backup Now". The backup is queued and appears in the list once it has been taken and verified — the button does not wait for it.

Your server does not need to be stopped. Just before the copy begins, the platform asks your game to write its save to disk, using whatever command that game provides for it, and the copy is then taken as the files stand at that moment.

Some games have no such command. A game whose console offers no way to force a save writes its world on its own schedule instead, so there is nothing for the platform to ask. On those games a backup of a running server holds the game's last write. A game like that may not write its world at all while the server sits idle, so the backup can be as old as the server's last restart: a real world that restores, but not this exact second. Your game's own Backups article says which kind it is; stopping the server first always gives you the exact moment. On the Backups tab, a running server of a game like that shows a box, Stop the server, back up, then start it again: GameGrid warns the players where the game can be spoken to, stops the server, takes the backup and starts the server again by itself. Players are disconnected while it is stopped.

If the running game has a file open at the moment the copy reaches it, the copy waits a little and tries again, so the brief locks a game takes while writing its own save do not cost you a backup. A file still held after several seconds fails the copy, and the backup is then refused rather than recorded as a partial. The Status column names the file when that happens.

Files a game holds open for its whole life and recreates on start are skipped instead — Minecraft's session.lock is the one you are most likely to hear about. They cost the restore nothing. Save data is never skipped this way: a world file the game has open is waited for, never left out of the archive.

Manual backups sit in their own "Manual Backups" section. You can restore, download, re-label ("Edit Label") or delete them at any time. Each one is removed 30 days after it was taken. The Backups page shows that day under its date, as "Deleted on ..." (the column is headed "Created / deleted"). Nothing removes a manual backup earlier than that, not even to make room for another backup. To keep one longer, press Keep in Vault on its row, or download it first.

Downloading a backup

A verified backup has a Download button on the Backups page. It opens in a new tab, and your browser saves a .zip of the backup. The platform prepares the copy first, so a large backup can take a few minutes before the file starts; keep the tab open until it arrives.

The copy is your server's files exactly as backed up, with one exception: the credentials GameGrid itself keeps in your server's folder for its own tools are left out. That is the live map's access token on 7 Days to Die (and the gridgametools_ entry it adds to serveradmin.xml), the economy token PalDefender uses on Palworld, the GameGrid bridge token on Valheim, the RCON password the platform sets on Minecraft (rcon.password is left empty) and on DayZ (the RConPassword line of BattlEye's config), the platform's own .gamegrid folder and Enshrouded's GameGrid exchange folder, and the secret of any webtokens add command an older 7 Days to Die log recorded. Every other file, your own passwords and API tokens included, is in the download unchanged. Restoring the backup on the panel still brings everything back, and the platform writes its own credentials again when the server starts.

Downloading needs the same permission as restoring, and each download is recorded in the platform's audit log (which backup, and its size; never your file names). There is no download through the Customer API.

Uploading an archive from your own computer

There is an "Upload Backup" button for restoring an archive you already hold. It accepts .zip, .tar, .gz and .tar.gz.

It is not usable for a real world archive today. The file is sent inline through the API, which caps it at roughly 1.5 MB — smaller than almost any saved world.

Use FTP or SFTP to put a large archive on the server instead. Your credentials are on the server's Overview page.

Restoring a Backup

On the Backups page, find the backup you want and click "Restore". Only a backup whose state is "verified" offers the button — one still being taken, or one that failed, cannot be restored.

If players are connected when you press Restore, a dialog tells you how many and asks you to confirm before anything happens.

If the backup was taken while your server ran a newer game build than it runs now, you are warned first: a world from a newer build may not load on an older one, or may be damaged. The warning names both builds, and nothing happens unless you choose Restore anyway. For 7 Days to Die any other build counts, because its worlds do not load across major versions. Backups taken before the platform recorded the build have no build to compare, so they never show this warning.

The restore then runs in stages, and the page shows which one it is on:

1. Validate — the archive is checked before anything is touched.

2. Safety copy — a backup of your current save is taken, and it is the one exempt from retention.

3. Stage — the incoming files are extracted somewhere else entirely; your live save is still untouched.

4. Swap — the staged files are moved into place in one atomic step.

5. Health check — the restored server is checked before the restore is called complete.

Two different failures are reported differently, and the difference matters.

If your server started a new world

If a server that had a world starts a new, empty one, for example after the world folder was moved or the World Name setting was changed, the Overview and Backups pages show a warning: Your server started a new world. It gives the time the new world was created and says the world from before was not found. It appears only when GameGrid is sure, a few minutes after the server starts.

To get the old world back, restore a backup taken before that time (see "Restoring a Backup" above). If you meant to start over, click Dismiss for everyone on this server and the notice goes away for everyone on the server. Support can see the notice but cannot dismiss it for you.

Backup Quota

Every server gets one backup storage total of 30 GB, shared by its manual and automatic backups. The "Backup storage (manual and automatic)" card at the top of the Backups page shows how much of it is used, as a bar and as a figure, and under it how much is free for a new manual backup. That free figure counts the room the oldest automatic backups would give up, because they are removed first.

When the storage is full, the oldest automatic backup is removed first; a new manual backup is refused until there is room. The newest automatic backup is always kept, even when that takes you over the total: the card then says "Your backup space is full", and we email you about it at most once a month while it stays full.

If your manual backups and safety copies alone fill the storage, every automatic backup that may be removed is removed (so none is kept: each new one is taken and then removed again) and a new manual backup is refused. The refusal says how much your manual backups hold, how much the safety copies hold, and that deleting some manual backups frees room. For a backup taken with "Create Backup Now" it is the reason in the Status column of the failed backup; for an uploaded archive the page shows it as the error.

Delete a manual backup you no longer need and try again. If 30 GB is not enough for your server, open a support ticket — the total is set per server and we can raise it.

Backups and the Vault

Backups belong to a server. When you delete a server, its backups go with it. They are removed 30 days after the server is deleted, or 30 days after each was taken if that comes first. The disaster-recovery snapshots GameGrid keeps of the server are removed 30 days after the server is deleted as well.

Your Vault belongs to your account instead. A save in the Vault stays when the server is deleted, and is kept for 12 months from the day it was saved, so it is the place for a world you want to keep after the server has gone, for example when you delete a server to put another game in its slot (Switching Games and Keeping Your World).

See Saving a Server to Your Vault and Loading a Vault Save onto a Server.