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Download Your Valheim World From a Server: 1.0 Folders and .db/.fwl

Valheim Guide • Updated Oct 14, 2026

Download your Valheim world from a server

Since Valheim 1.0 a world is no longer a .db and .fwl pair: it is a folder of files, and a download that misses part of it will not load. This page covers what to download from a dedicated server, how to play the world on your own PC, and the backup copies the game keeps, checked against the Valheim 1.0.17 game files on 14 October 2026.

What a world looks like on disk

  • A world saved on 1.0 is a folder, worlds_local/MyWorld/. Inside, each save writes a numbered set of four files, _main.N.fwl2 (the world's name, seed and modifiers), _main.N.db2, _main.N.chunks and _main.N.ok, plus one .chunk file per piece of terrain. The game loads the highest number that has all four, so an older set left beside it does no harm.
  • A world last played before 1.0 is still the old pair, MyWorld.db (buildings, chests, terrain) and MyWorld.fwl (name, seed, version). The first time it is saved on 1.0, the game converts it into the folder and keeps the old files as a dated backup.
  • The game's own backups sit next to the world: folders named MyWorld_backup_auto- followed by a date on 1.0, and .db.old and .fwl.old copies for older worlds. A dedicated server keeps four automatic backups by default, the first 2 hours old and the other three 12 hours apart.

How to download your world files

  1. Stop the server in your Supercraft panel, so nothing is written while you copy.
  2. Find the world: in the file manager open the Game Data section and its worlds_local folder; the world carries the name shown in the Map list of your server settings. Over FTP the same folder is Game Data/worlds_local.
  3. A 1.0 world folder: use FTP. The panel's file manager downloads one file at a time, and a 1.0 world holds one file per terrain chunk, so connect an FTP client with the FTP details from the panel and download the whole MyWorld folder.
  4. A pre-1.0 world: download MyWorld.db and MyWorld.fwl, from the file manager or over FTP. Both are needed.

How to play the world locally

  1. Open your own save folder: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local\ on Windows (Win + R and paste it), or ~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local/ on Linux.
  2. Copy in the whole world folder, or the .db and .fwl pair.
  3. Launch Valheim: the world appears in the Start Game list.

Steam Cloud: worlds you keep in Steam Cloud live in a different folder, worlds instead of worlds_local. A world copied into worlds_local is a local world; that is the one to use for a server.

Check what you downloaded

Drop the world folder, its _main.N.fwl2, or an old .fwl into the Valheim Seed Viewer: it reads the world name, seed and modifiers in your browser without uploading anything, and draws the map for that seed. To send a world the other way, see uploading a world to your server; to restore an older copy, see restoring a backup.

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