Icarus Save Files: Where They Are and How to Move a Prospect
Icarus has no manual save button, and that is the source of most "how do I save in Icarus" confusion. This page explains what the game actually writes to disk, where those files live on a PC and on a dedicated server, and how to move a prospect from one to the other. The dedicated-server paths below were read from a live Icarus server rather than copied from a wiki.
The short answer
- There is no save button. Icarus writes your prospect automatically, and again when the session ends cleanly.
- A prospect is one JSON file named after the prospect, not a folder or a binary blob.
- Your character is not in that file. Talents and XP live separately in
Accolades.json. - Quit properly. Because saving is automatic, killing the game or the server process is what actually loses progress.
How Saving Works
Icarus is built around prospects: a dropped session on a map that persists between play sessions. The game saves that prospect state for you, so there is no "save game" entry in the menu to look for. What matters for not losing progress is ending the session cleanly, because an abrupt kill can leave the most recent changes unwritten.
On a dedicated server the same rule applies to the server process: stop the server through your control panel rather than force-killing it, and the prospect file is written out properly. This is also why scheduled restarts are safer than crash-and-restart cycles.
Where the Save Files Live
On a dedicated server
Everything Icarus persists sits under the server's Saved directory:
Saved/
├── PlayerData/
│ └── DedicatedServer/
│ ├── Accolades.json <- character progression
│ └── Prospects/
│ └── YourProspect.json <- one file per prospect
├── Config/
│ └── WindowsServer/
│ └── ServerSettings.ini <- server configuration
├── Logs/
└── Crashes/The prospect file is named after the prospect itself, so a prospect called Olympus Run becomes Olympus Run.json. That single file is the world.
Two details catch people out. First, the config path really does say WindowsServer even when the server runs on Linux, because the dedicated server is a Windows build. Second, the identity folder under PlayerData is the literal string DedicatedServer rather than a Steam ID, which is the difference from a solo install.
On your own PC
A solo game uses the same structure, with your Steam ID where the server has DedicatedServer. Paste this into the Windows Explorer address bar:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Icarus\Saved\PlayerData\Inside you will find a folder named with your Steam ID, and inside that a Prospects folder holding one JSON file per prospect, plus Accolades.json. If you see more than one Steam ID folder, the one with recent timestamps is the account you actually play on.
What Is in Each File
| File | Holds | Lost if deleted |
|---|---|---|
Prospects/<name>.json | The prospect: terrain changes, buildings, containers, mission state | That world only |
Accolades.json | Character progression, talents and unlocks for that identity | Your character, every prospect keeps existing |
ServerSettings.ini | Server configuration, not player data | Settings revert to defaults |
The split matters when you ask a host for a restore. Rolling back a prospect does not roll back your character, and restoring a character does not bring a deleted prospect back. They are separate files with separate lifetimes.
Moving a Prospect Between Solo and a Dedicated Server
Because a prospect is a single self-contained JSON file, moving one is a file copy. The two identity folders differ, so the copy has to land in the right place.
Solo game to dedicated server
- Stop the server. Copying a prospect into a running server risks it being overwritten when the server next writes state.
- On your PC, open
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Icarus\Saved\PlayerData\<YourSteamID>\Prospects\and take the.jsonfor the prospect you want. - Upload it into
Saved/PlayerData/DedicatedServer/Prospects/on the server, over FTP or your host's file manager. - Start the server and load the prospect by its name.
Dedicated server to solo game
The same steps in reverse: stop the server, download the .json from Saved/PlayerData/DedicatedServer/Prospects/, and drop it into your own Prospects folder. It will appear in your prospect list.
What does not transfer
Copy the prospect and you move the world, not the people in it. Character progression lives in each identity's own Accolades.json, so players joining your server level up their server-side character independently of their solo one. Do not overwrite another identity's Accolades.json with yours to "bring your character across" — that replaces whatever progression was already there. Keep a copy of any file you overwrite.
Before You Touch Any Save File
- Take a backup first. Download the whole
PlayerDatafolder before editing or overwriting anything in it. - Stop the server first. Every file operation on a live server races the server's own writes.
- Keep the file name. The prospect is identified by its file name, so renaming the JSON renames the prospect.
- Do not hand-edit the JSON unless you are prepared to lose the world. It is machine-written state, and a malformed file will not load.
Housekeeping: Logs and Crash Dumps
Two directories sit next to your save data and grow steadily: Saved/Logs/ and Saved/Crashes/. On a long-running server these routinely reach tens of gigabytes each — far larger than the save data they sit beside, which is usually a few megabytes. Neither contains anything you need to keep a world alive, so if you are short on disk, clear those before you go anywhere near PlayerData.
Related Guides
- Icarus dedicated server configuration (ServerSettings.ini)
- Icarus server settings generator (builds the file for you)
- Icarus admin and console commands
- Icarus server performance tuning
Looking for managed Icarus server hosting? Supercraft runs Icarus dedicated servers with daily backups, so a bad prospect edit is a restore rather than a lost world.