You’re low on disk space. You want to uninstall a game you haven’t played in months — but you might come back to it. The question is: will your saves still be there when you do?

For some launchers the answer is yes, automatically. For others, if you don’t back up manually before uninstalling, your saves are gone.

Here’s what to do for each launcher before you hit uninstall.

Steam: Check Cloud Sync First

Steam can preserve your saves automatically if cloud sync is enabled for that game.

Verify it’s working:

  1. Right-click the game in Steam → Properties → General
  2. Confirm “Keep game saves in the Steam Cloud” is checked
  3. Check the Last Sync timestamp — if it’s recent, you’re covered

If cloud isn’t available or you want a local backup too:

Steam local saves are usually at:

  • %APPDATA%\[GameName]\
  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\[GameName]\
  • Documents\My Games\[GameName]\
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\[SteamID]\[AppID]\remote\

Copy the entire folder to a separate drive or cloud storage before uninstalling. Uninstalling a Steam game does not delete these locations — but a Windows reinstall or drive format will.

Epic Games Launcher

Epic doesn’t automatically cloud-sync every title, and uninstalling through the Epic launcher will not delete your save files — they stay in their local folders. But to be safe:

Back up from:

  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\[GameName]\Saved\SaveGames\
  • Documents\My Games\[GameName]\

If the game uses Epic Cloud Saves (indicated by a cloud icon in the launcher), your saves survive uninstall automatically.

EA App

Electronic Arts has EA Cloud Saves for supported titles, but it’s inconsistent. Uninstalling through the EA App should preserve local saves, but it’s risky to rely on that.

Back up from:

  • Documents\EA Games\[GameName]\
  • %APPDATA%\EA Games\[GameName]\

GOG Galaxy

GOG Galaxy’s uninstaller does not delete your save files — they’re stored separately from the game installation. Still worth backing up manually:

  • %APPDATA%\[GameName]\
  • Documents\My Games\[GameName]\
  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\GOG.com\Galaxy\Applications\[AppID]\

For GOG games with cloud saves, the cloud icon appears next to the game in your library.

The Safe Habit: Back Up Before Every Uninstall

Even if a launcher promises cloud saves, manual backups take 30 seconds and protect against sync failures, account issues, and the few games that just don’t work with cloud at all.

Fast backup workflow:

  1. Press Win + R, type %APPDATA%, press Enter
  2. Sort by Date Modified — find the game’s folder
  3. Copy it to Documents\Game Save Backups\[GameName]\

Done. Now uninstall without anxiety.

Restoring After Reinstalling

  1. Reinstall the game
  2. Launch it once to generate the initial save directory
  3. Quit immediately
  4. Paste your backed-up save folder contents into the same path
  5. Relaunch — your progress should be intact

Find the Exact Save Location for Any Game

Not sure which folder to look in? Look up the exact save path for any specific game.

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