How to open a .sav file
Saved game file · Game data
A .sav file is a saved game, and the format belongs to whichever game wrote it. There is no universal viewer. What you can do depends entirely on the game or emulator involved.
What a .sav file actually is
Games store progress in whatever structure suits them, then give the file a .sav extension because it is descriptive. Two .sav files from different games have nothing in common.
Emulator saves are the exception worth knowing: those follow the conventions of the console being emulated, so a .sav from a Game Boy emulator is a copy of the cartridge battery RAM and is broadly interchangeable between emulators for that system.
Why it will not open
Nothing opens it because nothing generic can. You are not missing software; the file only means something to the program that created it.
Step by step
Windows
- 01Load it in the game. That is the intended and usually the only route: put the file back in the game's save folder and it appears in the load menu.
- 02For emulator saves, place the .sav next to the ROM with the same base name. Most emulators pick it up automatically.
- 03To inspect the contents, open it in HxD. Player names and numbers are often visible as readable text, which is enough to confirm which game it belongs to.
- 04Save editors exist for popular games and are the only realistic way to change values. They are game-specific by nature.
macOS
- 01Run "file yourfile.sav" in Terminal, which occasionally identifies it.
- 02Otherwise the same applies: the game or emulator that made it is what reads it.
What usually goes wrong
Back up before touching anything
Save files are usually the only copy of many hours of progress and games rarely validate them gracefully. Copy the file somewhere safe before any experiment, because a corrupted save is not recoverable.
Programs that open .sav
Our pick, in order. Every one links to the publisher's official download URL and the SHA-256 hash of the installer, so you can check the file before you run it.
Common questions
- What program opens a .sav file?
- The game that created it. There is no universal .sav format, so no general viewer exists. For emulator saves, the emulator for that console reads it when the file sits next to the ROM with a matching name.
- Can I move a .sav file to another computer?
- Usually yes, if you put it in the same save folder on the other machine. Some games tie saves to an account or a hardware identifier, in which case the copied file is ignored.