Backup your singleplayer game!

[Obsi]

I just today found out how to make a backup of your singleplayer game, when I decided to be nice and copy my world over for MiniObsi, so she could have my unicorn...... All you need to do is go to your application data folder.... find the "minecraft" folder.... then the "saves". You'll have folders called "World1" and so on.... just copy that entire folder and that will save your single player game.

I'm suggesting this, because we just had a blackout while I was playing.... and when I went to reload the game, my savegame was completely gone! All the slots were empty.

Luckily I'd only a few hours before decided to make another save of my game because I was going to burn down some trees, so I can restore back to that... but I've lost 2 hours worth of cutting down a forest of trees, and a lot of building.....

The real kicker.... on Sat I bought a UPS, because this machine didn't have one, and I was worried I'd lose stuff in a blackout... and of course I left it sitting in the box beside me, too lazy to plug it in.....


(needless to say, I started unboxing it in the dark, and plugged it in as soon as the power came back on!)

[Manuzza]

What is this single player game you speak of?

Manuzza

[Bazz]

noob question - is there an ingame way to do this, or do you mean making a copy of the save folder and storing it else where?

[exekewtable]

yeah I just copy the World1 folder or whatever I want to backup to a different directory.
You can then rename it and just manage the slots by calling them whatever you want and restore back to World1-5 if required.

[Obsi]

yeah you have to go to the folder and copy/paste it to a different place to back it up... (I've been adding an underscore and the date to mine to differentiate them in my evergrowing quest to get a black pegasus or a pack horse...)

[DaedalusAlpha]

It's reasonably easy to write a simple batch file to do that automatically at startup if you really want to be safe. It could even delete backups that are old to save space

[Bazz]

Originally Posted by DaedalusAlpha

It's reasonably easy to write a simple batch file to do that automatically at startup if you really want to be safe. It could even delete backups that are old to save space

Simple?
(must be some useage of the word that I was not previously aware of)

I can write my name (In proper grown up joined together writing and everything!) will that help?

Sarcasm and my ignorance aside, this sounds very cool - is it something you would be able to write something generic for, that those of us (me) who wouldnt be able to do this?

[DaedalusAlpha]

Reasonably easy as in it's a lot easier than writing a C++ or Java program to do the same thing, and for someone with basic DOS knowledge it's pretty easy to understand

But yeah I guess I could do that, I need to use my batch coding skills to keep them fresh.

(note that this is for Windows though, I assume it's windows you're running?)

[Bazz]

Originally Posted by DaedalusAlpha

(note that this is for Windows though, I assume it's windows you're running?)

It is - if you could do this, would be of a huge help (and I could rest easy knowing the boys worlds were safe!)

[DaedalusAlpha]

Ok here is a first try at it. Due to the different languages on our systems there might be some problems but we hope not.

Installation

Three files are supplied; the MinecraftBackup.bat file which is the main backup file, MinecraftRestore.bat which is the restoration file and a file called forfiles.exe which is a utility command from Microsoft that isn't included by default in Windows. It and MinecraftBackup.bat needs to be in the same location. MinecraftRestore.bat doesn't need it.

Place the files at some smart location, for example the same folder as the main Minecraft file.
Before you run MinecraftBackup.bat the first time, open it by right clicking and choosing edit. There are three lines you can change in the beginning of the file clearly marked, especially the destination folder and days to keep might be interesting to change.

Storage structure

Files will be saved in the backup location in a folder called <date>_HHMMSS_<user name>

Under this folder each world will be saved; World1, World2, World3 and so on.
To restore a backup go to the folder you're interested in, copy the MinecraftRestore.bat file, paste it there and then run it. It will copy back all World files from that specific backup into the minecraft save folder. Keep in mind that it will overwrite any current files!

Autorun

You probably want to have the backup auto-run when windows starts. To do this drag MinecraftBackup.bat to the start menu -> all programs -> startup. Keep in mind though that this is a very slow and hard drive intensive process so it might not be the best idea to run it just as Windows starts. You can use the task scheduler to delay the start of the file. With some more batch magic I also think it might be possible to run it once minecraft closes if that's a better idea.

The file can be run any time you want if you want to make extra backups (as long as Minecraft isn't running at the same time).