How to export & download game save backups from Google Stadia

Open the Google Takeout web app and make sure you’re signed in to the Google account you use with Stadia. The first thing you’ll want to do here is click “deselect all”, since you probably don’t want everybody of your Google account data, just the Stadia part.

Scroll down the list until you find “Stadia” or use Ctrl-F to find “Stadia” on the page. Once you’ve found it, click the checkbox to select that you want to download your Stadia data. Then scroll down and click “Next step” button.

Using the dropdown box below “Delivery Method,” you can choose how you want to save your Stadia export. By default, you’ll receive them as links in an email, but you can save them to Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox.

Next, you’ll want to choose which format to receive your exported Stadia data in. The default setting of “.zip” and “2 GB” is probably your best option, but you can change it. if you know what you do.

Once you are satisfied with the settings, click “Create export” to start the Takeout process.

Google Takeout is not a quick process. Depending on the size of your Stadia export, which is determined by the number of screenshots and videos you’ve saved, this process can take minutes, hours, or even days. Fortunately, my personal Stadia backup only took two minutes to complete.

Once your backup is ready, you should receive an email with download links to your exported Stadia data from Google Takeout. Or, if you choose to back up to cloud storage, your files will already be in place.

Depending on how many videos you have saved over the years, this backup may be much larger than you expect. For convenience, Google will split your files into separate .zip files. Unfortunately and confusingly, the saves aren’t necessarily organized in the same zip, so you’ll need to check each one individually.

This step will look a little different for everyone, depending on the operating system you choose. On almost any modern computer, you can simply double click the zip file you downloaded. This will either open the zip to show you its contents or extract it immediately. Next, copy/extract the included Folder “to go” somewhere on your computer.

Open the “To Go” folder you just copied. Inside, open the folder labeled “Stadiums.”

You will then see three folders: “USER”, “SOCIAL” and “GAMES”. Open the “GAMING” binder.

Here you will find five more folders. Go ahead and open the one labeled “GAME_SAVE.” In that folder, you’ll find the exported save files for each Stadia game you’ve played.

Find the game you want to copy a save for (Celeste, on the screenshot below) and look for any zip files with the game’s name on them. Each of these zip files contains a single save game, and games that perform multiple auto saves, such as Cyberpunk 2077 or an Assassin’s Creed title, will have multiple zips. In the latter case, the zip file with the highest number in its name is likely to be your most recent save file.

This step is a bit more involved and will vary greatly from game to game. In the case of Cyberpunk 2077, your game saves must be located in your PC’s user folder under “Saved Games\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077”. While the developers’ support pages state that the two platforms’ saves are incompatible, many They have found that of being false.

For other games, you will need to find where the save games are saved in the PC version and copy your files there. Reddit and the Steam Community are the best places to look for this kind of information.

Regardless of the game you’re importing, you may not immediately unlock all the achievements you’ve earned in Stadia, but your saved progress will still be intact.

At the moment, GeForce NOW is not capable of manually copying game saves from your local device to the cloud, instead relying on cloud backups from services like Steam and Epic Games.

To bypass this limitation and continue playing your favorite games from the cloud, you will need to temporarily use a more advanced cloud service like Shade either PlutoSphere, the latter of which conveniently offers hourly rates. These services give you access to a full Windows machine on which you can install big games like Cyberpunk 2077.

Once you’ve installed the necessary games on that cloud machine, you can download and manage your Stadia backup saves on that PC and copy each one to the right place.

You’ll then need to individually open each game and load your Stadia backup to make sure it works. More importantthen you want save your game again. This should send a signal to the Steam or Epic Games client that you have a new save to upload to the cloud. Once that has happened, you should be able to resume the game from your preferred streaming service.