Back up and move your Terraria world

Your Terraria world is backed up every time the server sleeps, and every 10 minutes while it runs. You can also make, restore or download a backup in Backups. This page also shows where Terraria keeps worlds, and how to bring yours from single player.

How backups work on Wilderack

Backups hold your worlds and config files, never the game files.

Make, restore and download a backup

Make one: open Backups, press the backup button and name it, like “before the Wall of Flesh”.

Restore one: pick it in Backups and restore it. We make a safety backup of the current world first, so you can undo. Then start the server.

Download one: pick it in Backups and download it as a zip. The link works for 24 hours.

Terraria’s own backups

When Terraria saves a world, it keeps the save before it as a .bak file next to the world, like MyWorld.wld.bak. If a world won’t load in the game, the game offers Load Backup, which uses that file.

TShock also makes its own backups every 10 minutes, in tshock/backups. Our backups go further back than both.

Where the world lives on the server

Each world is a .wld file. tModLoader adds a .twld file with the same name, which holds the modded parts. Keep the two together.

Which world loads is set by the world line in serverconfig.txt, as a full path. Choosing a world in Settings sets it for you.

Bring your single-player world

Find it on your PC

Close Terraria first. Then open the folder for your system:

Each world’s file is named after the world, like MyWorld.wld. Your characters are in the Players folder next to Worlds. You don’t upload them: each player brings their own character when they join.

Worlds on Steam Cloud

If your world is saved to Steam Cloud, it isn’t in the folders above. In the game’s world list, choose Move off cloud for that world. It then shows up in your Worlds folder, ready to upload.

Upload it

The easy way:

1. Zip the .wld file. For tModLoader, put the .twld file with the same name in the zip too.
2. Open Games > Bring your world and upload the zip.
3. In Settings, choose that world, then start the server.

The manual way, with Files or SFTP:

1. Stop the server on Overview.
2. Upload the .wld file, and the .twld for tModLoader, into the server’s worlds folder from the table above.
3. In serverconfig.txt, set world= to the full path of that file.
4. Start the server, and check that your world loaded before anyone builds.

If the server makes a new world instead, the path doesn’t match. See the server made a new world.

A world saved by a newer Terraria version won’t load on an older server. Keep the server up to date, or update your game before you upload.

Phones and consoles

Consoles don’t let you copy world files off them, so console worlds can’t come to a server. Getting files off a phone depends on the phone, so we can’t promise steps for it.

Move a world from another host

1. On the old host, stop the server and download the world’s .wld file, plus its .twld for tModLoader.
2. Upload them with the steps in Upload it.
3. Check the server type matches: a tModLoader world goes on a tModLoader server.

Take a world back to single player

1. Download a backup from Backups, or the world file from Files.
2. Close Terraria, and put the .wld file, plus the .twld for tModLoader, in your Worlds folder from the table above.
3. Start the game. The world is in your world list.