Darkest Dungeon save location, backups and what to do after losing a hero
Checked against Darkest Dungeon (Steam build 25810065) · November 3, 2026
Darkest Dungeon saves constantly, and a hero who dies is gone for good, so the only way back from a bad raid is a copy you made earlier. This guide shows where the Steam saves live on Windows and Mac, how to copy and restore them, and why a profile sometimes vanishes from the load screen. It also says plainly what the editor can and cannot do for a hero you have lost.
Where the saves are
Each campaign is one folder called profile_N, and profile_0 is the first slot. With the Steam version they sit in the folder Steam Cloud syncs:
- Windows: Steam\userdata\<your id>\262060\remote\profile_N (usually under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam).
- Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/userdata/<your id>/262060/remote/profile_N.
The number 262060 is the game’s Steam app number. If there are several folders under userdata, each is a Steam account; pick the one with a 262060 folder inside.
Inside a profile you will find a handful of persist.*.json files (the estate, the roster, the upgrades and so on) and a backup folder.
Back up before a risky raid
- Quit to the desktop so the game finishes writing.
- Copy the whole profile_N folder, backup folder included, to another place, and put the date in its name.
- Do this before a boss, before a quest with a weak party, or whenever the Hamlet is in a state you like.
A copy of the whole folder is what makes a restore reliable. Steam Cloud only keeps the latest version of the folder, so it cannot take you back to last week.
What the backup folder inside a profile is
The game keeps its own second copy of the campaign in the backup folder. In the profile we looked at, most of its files were identical to the live ones, so it is a safety net against a damaged file rather than a way back to an earlier week. Leave it as it is, and keep your own dated copies as well.
Getting a dead hero back
There is no way to undo a death inside the game, but the save keeps the dead hero in the roster, so there are two ways back:
- Bring them back with the editor. Dead heroes are listed under Graveyard on the Heroes tab, and Bring back to the Hamlet returns one to the roster with full health and the level, quirks and equipment they had, as long as the roster has room. The game takes back skill ranks above the first when a hero dies; set them again on the same page.
- Restore a copy made before the raid. Everything after that copy is lost, including the gold and heirlooms the raid earned.
Put an older copy back
- Close the game. Closing Steam too stops it from uploading anything while you copy.
- Copy the saved profile_N folder over the same profile_N folder in the Steam folder, replacing its files.
- Start Steam and the game. If Steam asks which copy of the save to keep, keep the local one, which is the one you just restored.
Put the copy back into the same slot it came from. Steam only lists save files the game wrote itself, so a folder copied into an empty slot, or a file the game had already deleted (such as the expedition file after a raid ended), is ignored.
A profile is missing from the load screen
- Only some of the files were copied. Copy the whole profile_N folder, including persist.game.json, not just the files you changed.
- The folder went into a slot the game had never used. Start a new game in that slot, enter the first dungeon, quit, then replace its files.
- Steam is syncing in the background. Wait until it has finished, or turn off Steam Cloud for the game while you are copying.
The editor makes no backups and edits are at your own risk, so copy the profile folder before you open it. It is for your own offline single-player campaigns.