How to Back Up D2R Saves Before You Edit (Manual, Automatic & Cloud)

A backup is the difference between a bad edit costing you thirty seconds and costing you a character you have played for months. Diablo II: Resurrected offline saves are small files in one folder, so backing them up is genuinely easy — the only way to get it wrong is not to do it. This guide covers three layers that work together: a manual folder copy, D2CE’s built-in per-character backup, and automatic, versioned backup of the whole folder. If you have not found the folder yet, start with the save file location guide.

What to copy

Back up the entire folder at C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Diablo II Resurrected\ — every character’s .d2s, the shared stash .d2i, and the small settings files together. Copying individual .d2s files invites the classic mistake: restoring a character without the stash file that matches it, or forgetting the hardcore stash entirely. The whole folder is only a few megabytes.

Method 1: Manual folder copy (do this before every edit session)

1. Close Diablo II: Resurrected.
2. Open the save folder, go up one level, right-click Diablo II Resurrected and choose Copy.
3. Paste the copy into a backups folder you control — for example Documents\D2R Backups\ — and rename it with the date and a note, such as 2026-10-23 — before respec.
4. Keep at least the last three session backups. Delete older ones only after the character has been played successfully.

Make a fresh, versioned copy before each edit session, not just before your first-ever edit. Each session’s backup is a restore point for exactly the changes you are about to make, which makes restoring a corrupted or lost save a file copy instead of a rescue operation.

Method 2: D2CE’s built-in .bak backup

D2CE protects you per character, automatically. In Options > Backup Character Before Save — on by default — the editor keeps a .bak copy of the character every time a save overwrites it. If an edit goes wrong, Options > Restore Character puts that backup back. This layer is fast and convenient, but it holds only the most recent previous version and it lives in the same folder as the original, so it does not protect you against disk failure or accidentally deleting the whole folder. Keep it on, and treat it as a second layer, not your only one. The full editor workflow is in the D2CE user guide.

Method 3: Automatic, versioned backup of the whole folder

Manual copies only exist if you remembered to make them. An automatic backup covers the sessions you rushed, the edits you made “just quickly”, and the day the drive died. Two legs work well together:

Cloud plus local gives you the classic 3-2-1 shape in miniature: the live folder, a local copy on another device, and an off-site versioned copy. Our broader round-up is in D2R save backup solutions.

Before a game patch: back up first, always

Game patches are the other moment backups matter. A patch can change the save format — the move to Patch 3.x and the Warlock-era formats is the recent example — and editors built for an older format may no longer open new saves at all. Before you let the game update:

1. Copy the whole save folder (manual method above) and label it with the patch you are leaving, e.g. pre-3.x backup.
2. Confirm the cloud backup shows a recent version of the folder.
3. Only then update the game — and check the Patch 3.x & Warlock compatibility status before trying to edit a post-patch save with any tool.

A pre-patch backup cannot make an old editor read a new format, but it preserves the character exactly as it was, which keeps every other option open.

Backup checklist

• Whole folder copied — not just one .d2s.
• Backup renamed with date + reason (“before respec”, “pre-patch”).
• D2CE “Backup Character Before Save” confirmed on.
• Cloud version history enabled for the save folder.
• One copy exists off this PC (cloud or external drive).
• You know how to restore: see restoring a corrupted or lost save.