So you've been playing Conan Exiles solo, you've stacked up a sandstone fortress somewhere in the Exiled Lands, tamed a few thralls, and now you want to invite friends in. Good news – you can move your singleplayer save across to a dedicated server. It's a handful of steps and a bit of care around file paths, and that's about it.
Where Conan Exiles Keeps Its Saves
Conan Exiles is a bit odd here. Instead of dropping saves into AppData like most games, it writes them into its own install folder. For a standard Steam install that's:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Conan Exiles\ConanSandbox\Saved\
Quickest route: in Steam, right-click Conan Exiles → Manage → Browse local files. Steam opens you straight into the install root, then it's ConanSandbox\Saved\.
Inside that folder the file you want is game.db. That one file is your world – character, buildings, thralls, chests, placed torches, the lot. It's a single SQLite database, and for the Exiled Lands map it's the only thing you need to copy.
On the Isle of Siptah DLC map the file is DLC_Siptah.db instead, sitting in the same folder. The two maps keep entirely separate saves that don't talk to each other, so uploading one doesn't bring the other across.
One catch worth flagging. If you first launched Conan Exiles without admin rights on Windows, UAC may have quietly redirected your save into the VirtualStore:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Conan Exiles\ConanSandbox\Saved\
If game.db isn't where you expect it, paste that path into the File Explorer address bar and have a look – plenty of players' saves end up there without them realising.
Before You Touch Anything
Two things, both matter.
Stop the server first. Log into control.low.ms, find your Conan Exiles service, hit STOP. Uploading over a running server is a straight route to a corrupted save – game.db is an open SQLite file that the server writes to constantly, and overwriting it mid-write leaves you with something half-rewritten that won't load. Stop it, give it a good ten or fifteen seconds to actually come down, then start the transfer.
Back up what's already on the server. Even if the server's brand new and there's nothing worth keeping, get into the habit now. In the panel sidebar, click Cloud Backup and take one. Takes seconds. If your imported save turns out to be broken, or isn't the version you thought it was, Cloud Restore puts you right back.
Uploading via File Manager
The panel's File Manager is fine for this job:
- Log into control.low.ms and pick your Conan Exiles server
- Click File Manager in the sidebar
- Open
ConanSandbox/Saved/ - Delete the existing
game.db(orDLC_Siptah.dbfor Siptah). If you'd rather have a quick local rollback, rename it togame.db.bakinstead - Upload your
game.dbfromConanSandbox\Saved\on your PC into the same folder on the server
File Manager handles a single file upload cleanly, and that's really all you're doing here – one file across. Where it starts to feel slow is on long-lived servers where the database has grown, or if you're on a flaky connection. At that point SFTP is the better call.
Uploading via SFTP
SFTP is on port 8822. You'll need a client – WinSCP and FileZilla both work fine. Your connection details live in Service Settings in the panel.
- Protocol: SFTP
- Host: the address shown in Service Settings
- Port: 8822
- Username / Password: your panel credentials for this service
Connect, navigate to ConanSandbox/Saved/ on the server side, drag game.db across from your local machine. SFTP gives you a proper progress bar and recovers better on bigger transfers, which is what you want if the database has any real size on it.
Starting Back Up
Kick the server off from the panel. First boot with an imported save takes longer than normal – Conan has to open the database, validate it, rebuild its in-memory state and bring the world back. If it's a big save, give it a couple of minutes and don't panic.
Pop open Web Console and watch the logs. Once the scrolling settles down and the server goes quiet, grab your connection details and join in. Character, base, thralls – all where you left them.
Quick thing on maps: the server only loads the database that matches whatever map it's configured to run. If the server's set to the Exiled Lands but you uploaded DLC_Siptah.db, it'll load a fresh empty Exiled Lands and quietly ignore the Siptah file. On a Conan dedicated server there are two valid places the active map gets set. The main one is Engine.ini under ConanSandbox/Saved/Config/WindowsServer/, via the ServerDefaultMap= line – that's Funcom's documented primary method and the one you'll want if you're making the setting persistent. The other is Commandline Manager in the panel, which adds a launch-argument override – handy if you want to flip maps without touching config files. Both work; pick whichever fits. Either way, get the map right first, then put the matching .db in.
A Few Useful Things to Know
game.db being a plain SQLite file has one nice upside: you can open a copy on your own machine with something like DB Browser for SQLite and poke around. Tables for buildings, characters, thralls, inventories – it's all sitting there. A couple of community projects wrap a friendlier UI around the same data: Conan Server Toolbox and the conanexilessql script collection are both worth a look if you want to reset a stuck player, clean up an abandoned base by hand, or just see how the game is put together. Always work on a copy – there's no undo button on a hand-edited SQLite file.
Version drift is another one to watch. If your local game has updated and the server hasn't (or vice versa) the schema the server expects can be out of step with what's in your save, and you'll see the world refuse to load or come up partial. Keep both on the same build – use Steam Update in the panel to bring the server onto the version your client is on before you import.
If any of this goes wrong, that's what your backup is there for. Cloud Restore, pick the backup you took at the start, and you're back where you were. For anything on tuning settings once your world is up and live, have a read of the Conan Exiles server settings guide.