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Transferring Save Files

Whether you're moving to a new PC, backing up before an update, or switching between the Public and Patreon builds, your progress lives in a handful of small files. This guide shows you exactly where they are and how to move them.

Good news: builds share one save folder

Every Windows build of Life in Woodchester — Public, Standard and Deluxe — uses the same save folder (they all share the game name "Life in Woodchester"). So when you update or switch builds on the same PC, your saves are already there — no copying needed.

📁 Where saves are stored

Platform Location
Windows %LocalAppData%\Life in Woodchester\
Android The app's private storage — see the Android note below

For macOS, the official install instructions use Wine to run the Windows build. A macOS/Wine save location has not been verified for this guide.

On Windows that full path is usually:

C:\Users\<YourName>\AppData\Local\Life in Woodchester\

📄 What's in the folder

Your progress is spread across a few files — the important ones:

File What it is
Save_0.sav, Save_1.sav, … Your manual save slots
Autosave_….sav Autosaves
savelist.ini The index of your saves — copy this too, or your slots may not appear
Gallery.sav Unlocked CG Gallery scenes
config.ini Settings (volume, resolution, etc.)
photos.json + camphoto_*.png Photos taken with the in-game phone

Simplest approach: copy the whole folder

You don't need to cherry-pick files — copying the entire Life in Woodchester folder moves everything (saves, gallery, settings, photos) in one go.

💻 Find your saves on Windows

  1. Press Win+R to open the Run dialog.
  2. Type %localappdata% and press Enter.
  3. Open the Life in Woodchester folder.

Don't see the folder?

Run the game once (it's created on first launch), then look again. Still stuck? Search that AppData\Local folder for savelist.ini or Save_0.sav — whatever folder they're in is your save folder.

📥 Back up your saves

  1. Close the game (so it isn't writing to the files).
  2. Copy the whole Life in Woodchester folder somewhere safe — a USB drive, another folder, or cloud storage.

That copy is your backup. Done.

📤 Move to another PC (or restore a backup)

  1. Install Life in Woodchester on the new PC and run it once, then close it — this creates the save folder.
  2. On the new PC, open %localappdata%\Life in Woodchester\.
  3. Paste your copied Save_*.sav files and savelist.ini (and anything else you want — Gallery.sav, config.ini, photos) into it, overwriting if asked.
  4. Launch the game and choose Load Game — your slots should be there.

↔ Public ↔ Patreon / Standard ↔ Deluxe

Because every Windows build uses the same Life in Woodchester folder:

  • Same PC: nothing to do — installing or updating any build picks up your existing saves automatically.
  • Different PC: copy the folder across using the steps above; the saves work in any Windows build.

Version direction

A save from an older build almost always loads in a newer one. Going the other way (a newer save in an older build) may not work — keep a backup before downgrading.

📱 Android

On Android the game saves to its private app storage (package dirtysockgames.lifeinwoodchester), which normal file managers can't reach without a rooted device or a full-app backup tool.

  • Same device: installing an update keeps your saves — you don't need to do anything.
  • New device / PC ↔ phone: use a device backup/restore tool, or transfer the whole app's data with a backup utility. Save files are not cross-compatible in format between Windows and Android in every case, so keep a backup and expect to verify.

⚠ Gotchas

  • Always close the game before copying — otherwise you might grab a half-written file.
  • Copy savelist.ini alongside your Save_*.sav files, or the slots may not show up.
  • Back up first, every time, before overwriting anything.

🔗 See also