Moving a singleplayer 7 Days to Die world up to your LOW.MS server isn't hard, but there are a couple of bits that trip people up every time – usually the GeneratedWorlds folder, which half the internet forgets about, and the two lines in serverconfig.xml that point the server at your save. Get those right and you'll log in exactly where you left off, base and all.
Worth knowing up front: if you've been playing on a randomly generated map, you need two folders off your machine (Saves and GeneratedWorlds). If you've been playing Navezgane, you only need the Saves folder – Navezgane ships with the dedicated server build so the world files are already on the box.
Where your save lives on the PC
7DTD drops everything into AppData Roaming. Fastest way there is Win + R, paste %APPDATA%\7DaysToDie, hit enter, and you'll land on a folder with Saves, GeneratedWorlds, Mods and a couple of others inside it.
%APPDATA%\7DaysToDie\Saves\<WorldName>\<GameName>\
%APPDATA%\7DaysToDie\GeneratedWorlds\<WorldName>\
<WorldName> is the map the save is on (Navezgane, PREGEN10k, or whatever you called your custom RWG). <GameName> is the save name you typed when starting the world. Both matter in a minute when we edit the config, so grab a note of them.
Inside Saves\<WorldName>\<GameName>\ you'll see a Region\ folder full of .7rg files (those are the actual world chunks – terrain, built blocks, looted containers), a Player\ folder with .ttp profiles (one per player who's ever logged in), and a handful of smaller XML files like players.xml. There's also a main.ttw which the game uses as a world state pointer.
If you're on a procgen map, the matching GeneratedWorlds\<WorldName>\ folder holds the generation output – biomes.png, splat3.png, prefabs.xml, map_info.xml, the raw DTM files and a few others. Without that sibling folder the server has nothing to render the world from and will refuse to load the save.
Navezgane is the exception. It's a hand-crafted map that shipped with the game, so the dedicated server build already has it. You can skip the GeneratedWorlds step entirely.
Stop the server before you touch anything
Please actually do this one. A running 7DTD server writes to its .7rg files constantly – every time a player loots a crate, breaks a block, or even walks around spawning new chunks. Dropping files over the top of that is how you get an "Incorrect region file header" exception at next boot, and those aren't fun to dig out of.
Go to https://control.low.ms, open your 7 Days to Die service, and hit Stop. Wait for it to actually stop – a few seconds. While you're waiting, run Cloud Backup from the sidebar so there's a rollback point if anything goes sideways. Cloud Backup takes a snapshot of the whole service including the current save, and Cloud Restore can put it back later.
Option 1: File Manager (smaller saves)
If your save is under a few hundred megs, the panel's File Manager is the quickest route.
On your PC, zip the two folders first. Right-click %APPDATA%\7DaysToDie\Saves\<WorldName> and pick Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder. Do the same for GeneratedWorlds\<WorldName> if you're moving a random map. You should end up with two zips.
Back on the panel:
- Select your 7DTD service and click File Manager in the sidebar.
- Open the
Saves/folder at the service root. Upload your Saves zip here. - Open the
GeneratedWorlds/folder. Upload the GeneratedWorlds zip here (skip for Navezgane). - Right-click each zip and pick Unzip.
- Delete the zips once they've extracted.
When the dust settles, the paths on the server should look exactly like:
Saves/<WorldName>/<GameName>/
GeneratedWorlds/<WorldName>/
If your zip nested an extra folder during extraction (some do, some don't), you'll see Saves/<WorldName>/<WorldName>/<GameName>/ or similar. Just move the inner folder up a level so the structure's right. The server doesn't care how you got there, only that the final layout is correct.
A long-running procgen world can get chunky – several hundred megabytes once you've explored a decent area, plus a gigabyte or more of region data isn't unusual. If the File Manager upload starts dragging or timing out, stop fighting it and switch to SFTP.
Option 2: SFTP (anything bigger)
SFTP is on port 8822. WinSCP, FileZilla, Cyberduck – any SFTP client works. Credentials are in Service Settings on the panel.
- Protocol: SFTP
- Host: your server's address (from Service Settings)
- Port: 8822
- Username / Password: your panel login for this service
Once you're connected you'll see the same Saves/ and GeneratedWorlds/ directories at the root. Drag the <WorldName> folder from your local %APPDATA%\7DaysToDie\Saves\ into the server's Saves/, and the matching <WorldName> folder from %APPDATA%\7DaysToDie\GeneratedWorlds\ into the server's GeneratedWorlds/. Navezgane players only need the first of those.
SFTP handles the thousands of small region files much better than any browser upload, and you'll get a real progress bar instead of wondering whether your tab has hung.
Pointing serverconfig.xml at the save
This is the step people skip, and then they message support wondering why their server booted up on a fresh Navezgane instead of their three-month RWG.
You need to tell the server two things: which world to load, and which save inside it to use. Both live in serverconfig.xml. Open it from Configuration Files in the sidebar (the friendly form-based editor) or directly via File Manager – it's sat in the service root alongside serveradmin.xml.
GameWorld– the world folder name.Navezganefor the stock map, or whatever you named your RWG folder insideGeneratedWorlds/.GameName– the save folder name underSaves/<WorldName>/. Whatever you originally typed when you started the game.
<property name="GameWorld" value="MyHugeMap"/>
<property name="GameName" value="WastelandRun"/>
Match the folder names exactly, capitalisation included – 7DTD looks these values up against the folder names on disk and a stray capital letter is enough for it to decide nothing matches.
If GameName doesn't match an existing save folder, the server cheerfully creates a new empty save with that name and leaves your uploaded save sitting there untouched. If GameWorld doesn't match a folder under GeneratedWorlds/ (or one of the built-in worlds), the server bails with a world-load error at startup.
Save the config.
Boot it up
Hit Start from Service Settings and pop open Web Console or Log Viewer to watch the logs.
First boot after importing a save is noticeably slower than a normal start – 7DTD rebuilds its chunk indices and sanity-checks the region files before it'll accept players. A medium RWG map tends to take 3-5 minutes, large ones longer. You're looking for GameWorld = <YourWorldName> early in the log, and StartGame done towards the end. That's the "we're in" signal.
If you see Loading of world failed or region header errors, stop the server, double-check your folder paths and the two config values, and try again. A single capitalisation mistake is enough to send it sideways.
Once it's up, grab the connection details from the panel and join. Your character carries over – inventory, skills, quests, the bedroll you dropped half an hour before you left. Nothing to migrate manually.
A few gotchas
7DTD's save format is binary and the region files aren't something you can (or should) hand-edit. Community tools like 7DaysProfileEditor exist for tweaking player profiles, but for moving a save between machines you don't need to open any of it – just keep the folder structure intact.
Version drift will ruin your afternoon. A save made on one major version won't reliably load on another, and even minor patches occasionally bump the format. Before you try this whole process, make sure the server is on the same build as your client. Run Steam Update from the sidebar if you're not sure.
And if something does go wrong, Cloud Restore is right there. Pick the backup you made before uploading, roll back, try again. That's what it's for.
For the full breakdown of every option in your config file – difficulty, day length, Blood Moon settings, PvP – the 7 Days to Die server configuration guide covers the lot.