Moving a singleplayer ARK world onto a dedicated server is one of those jobs that sounds fiddly and turns out to be mostly file-copying with a rename stuck in the middle. The bit that trips people up is almost never the upload – it's the map name in the filename not matching what the server is set to load, or a forgotten profile rename leaving you naked on a beach.
Here's the process I use, in the order I do it.
Finding your local save
ARK keeps singleplayer saves under your Steam install at:
Steam\steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\SavedArksLocal\
If Steam lives somewhere other than C:\Program Files (x86)\, swap that prefix for wherever your library actually is. The fastest way to get there is right-clicking ARK in your Steam library, picking **Manage → Browse local files**, then stepping into ShooterGame\Saved\SavedArksLocal\.
Open it up and you'll see a mix of three file types:
- A
.arkfile named after whichever map you've been playing –TheIsland.ark,Ragnarok.ark,Aberration_P.arkand so on. This is the world: terrain state, structures, tames, dropped items, everything that sits in the map. LocalPlayer.arkprofile, which is your survivor – level, stats, engram unlocks, appearance. Not inventory; that's stored with the world.- One or more
.arktribefiles (numeric filenames) if you ever created a tribe in solo.
You'll also see a scatter of backups – .bak, .profilebak, .tribebak and timestamped .ark files – that the game rolls on its own. Ignore those, you only need the live files.
Worth flagging: certain DLC maps write into their own sibling folder (Extinction, for example, uses ExtinctionSavedArksLocal). If your SavedArksLocal looks emptier than you expected, check one level up in Saved\ and sort by date modified to find the one you've actually been playing in.
Write down the map name exactly as it appears on the .ark file. That's the value your server has to be set to load, and it's case-sensitive where it counts.
Stop the server and take a backup
Two things before you touch anything on the server side, and both matter more than they sound.
Stop the service. ARK rewrites its .ark file constantly while it's running, and overwriting one mid-write is a reliable way to produce a world that won't load. Head to control.low.ms, find the ARK service, hit stop, and wait for it to actually come down – not "stopping", fully stopped.
Then take a backup of whatever's already on the server, even if it's a fresh build you don't care about. In the panel sidebar: Cloud Backup → Create Backup. Thirty seconds of effort and a get-out clause if the upload goes sideways.
Uploading through File Manager
For a fresh character on a fresh map, File Manager in the panel is perfectly fine. Open your service, click File Manager in the sidebar, and work your way into ShooterGame/Saved/SavedArks/. Note the name change between client and server – SavedArksLocal at home, just SavedArks on the server.
From there:
- Delete the existing
<MapName>.arkfor the map you're overwriting. If you're moving a Ragnarok save onto a server that's been running The Island, you're going to be deletingTheIsland.arkoff the server anyway once you switch the map, but get in the habit of clearing out whichever.arkyou're replacing. - Delete any
.arkprofileor.arktribefiles from the server that you intend to replace. Leaving an old survivor profile next to a new one is fine; the server just loads whichever matches the Steam ID of whoever joins. - Upload your local
<MapName>.ark, your profile, and any tribe files.
Now the rename that catches everyone. LocalPlayer.arkprofile is a singleplayer convention – dedicated servers expect each player's profile to be named after their 17-digit SteamID64. Grab yours from steamid.io (paste your profile URL, copy the "steamID64" value) and rename the file to <yoursteamid64>.arkprofile. Example: 76561198012345678.arkprofile. Do it before uploading or after, just don't forget – without the rename, your survivor won't bind to your Steam account and you'll spawn in as a fresh level-one.
Tribe files don't need renaming. Their numeric filename is the in-game tribe ID and the server reads it as-is.
File Manager will see you through smaller saves without complaint. Once your world runs into the hundreds of MB – and a base-heavy Ragnarok will get there faster than you'd think – browser uploads start timing out. That's when SFTP earns its keep.
Uploading through SFTP
LOW.MS runs SFTP on port 8822. Any client works; I mostly use WinSCP, FileZilla is equally fine. Connection details live in Service Settings on the panel.
- Protocol: SFTP
- Host: the address shown in Service Settings
- Port: 8822
- Username and password: the same credentials you use for the service in the panel
Once you're in, navigate to /ShooterGame/Saved/SavedArks/ and drag the files across. Proper resume support, a real progress bar, and none of the "upload failed at 94%" misery you get from browser forms. Same SteamID64 rename applies – do it locally before transfer if you haven't already.
Pointing the server at the right map
This is the step that quietly undoes imports. ARK loads whichever map the commandline tells it to, and it does not look at what .ark files you've put in SavedArks/. Drop a Ragnarok.ark onto a server still pointed at The Island and ARK starts a fresh Island world, leaving your Ragnarok save completely ignored on disk.
Click Commandline Manager in the panel sidebar. The Predefined tab has one-click entries for every official map and DLC. Pick the one that matches your save filename – Ragnarok if you uploaded Ragnarok.ark, Aberration for Aberration_P.ark, and so on – click Select on the right-hand side and confirm.
If you've ever come across ?AltSaveDirectoryName= in forum threads, that's the parameter ARK uses to point saves at a non-default folder. It's mostly a cluster-management thing and you don't need to touch it for a straight singleplayer-to-dedicated move; the default SavedArks/ is where you've just uploaded to, and that's where ARK will look.
Full walkthrough with screenshots in the switching map or DLC on your ARK server guide.
First boot
Start the service back up. The first launch after an import is slower than normal – ARK has to parse and validate the entire world before it'll accept players – so give it five to ten minutes on a vanilla save, longer if you had a city's worth of structures or mods in the mix.
Web Console in the sidebar will show the startup log. What you're watching for is the "Full Startup" line; until that prints, the game port is open but the world isn't ready. Once it's up, connect on your server's IP and query port (27015 unless you've changed it).
If you join and find yourself on the spawn screen as a fresh character – no levels, no engrams, no anything – the rename didn't stick. Stop the service, double-check that your .arkprofile filename exactly matches your SteamID64 (no spaces, no extension typos), and restart.
Mods, versions, and other ways to lose an hour
A couple of caveats I learnt the hard way.
Mods. If your singleplayer world was running Structures Plus, custom dinos, or any mod that adds blueprints or changes save data, the server needs the same mods in the same order before it'll load the save without eating things. Install them through Mod Manager in the panel and update the ActiveMods= line in GameUserSettings.ini (via Configuration Files) to match before the first boot.
Version drift. If Steam updated your local game but the server's still on the previous build (or vice versa), the save format can refuse to cross over and you'll get a crash instead of a spawn. Run Steam Update on the server to pull the latest build and make sure both sides line up.
Binary saves. The .ark format is proprietary and opaque – you can't open one in a text editor, merge two of them, or surgically pull a single tame out. Third-party tools like ArkSavegameToolkit exist for inspection and light editing, but for moving a world wholesale there's nothing cleaner than copying the files intact.
And if it all falls over, that's what the Cloud Restore sidebar entry is for. Pick the backup you took at the start and you're back to where you began. For ini tweaks, rates, breeding multipliers and the rest, the ARK server configuration guide is the place to go next.