Multiple Devices

Several devices can share one backup folder through cloud backup: a desktop PC, a Steam Deck, a Steam Frame, and a Steam Machine all bisyncing the same remote. SaveVault knows which device made each backup and uses that to keep the shared folder safe and to tell you when a restore would lose progress.

Device names

Every archive records the device that wrote it, both in its manifest and in its filename, so two devices can never write the same name in the same second:

Elden Ring_2026-09-29_14.02.11_steam-deck-oled-3f9a.zip

The tag is the device’s name plus the first four characters of a random id generated once per install. The name part is lowercased, runs of anything other than letters and digits become a single hyphen, and it is cut to 24 characters; a name with no letters or digits at all becomes device, giving a tag like device-3f9a. The id is stored in a device-id file in SaveVault’s data folder, not in config.toml, so copying your config to another machine can’t make two devices share an identity. The name is detected — Steam Deck, Steam Deck OLED, Steam Machine, or Steam Frame on Valve hardware, otherwise your computer’s hostname — and you can override it under Settings → General → Device Name or with:

savevault-cli config set device.name "Living room PC"
savevault-cli config unset device.name          # back to the detected name

The device name is machine-local and never travels in a settings bundle. Backups made by older versions or by other tools carry no device and show as Unknown device.

Each device keeps its own count

Retention is counted per device. With a limit of 4, each device keeps its own four newest backups of a game and never deletes another device’s archives, so a PC that backs up every hour can’t age out the Deck’s backups. Unattributed archives may be pruned by any device. The Settings hint and bare savevault-cli config both say so.

Finding another device’s backups

Once the library holds a backup from another device, the Restore page shows a device chip on every row — This device or the other device’s name — and a Device filter appears. Once cloud backup is set up, a Sync button next to Refresh pulls the other devices’ backups down (and pushes this device’s up) without a trip to Settings. From the CLI:

savevault-cli backups --device this
savevault-cli backups --device "Steam Deck OLED"
savevault-cli backups --device 3f9a                  # start of a device id
savevault-cli cloud sync

When the library holds archives with no recorded device, the Device filter also offers Unknown device. That choice exists only on the Restore page; backups --device has no selector for them.

“This backup misses newer progress”

“Latest by date” isn’t always “most progress” across devices. If the PC backs up an old save after a Steam Deck session, the PC’s backup is newest, and restoring it would silently drop the Deck’s progress.

Every backup therefore records which backup its saves descended from — the one the device last restored, or its own previous backup. Following that chain, SaveVault can tell when a backup doesn’t include another device’s newer progress and warns you first:

• The Restore page shows the warning in the detail panel, naming the device and time of the progress that would be missing.
• savevault-cli restore prints the same warning.
• The launch wrapper never auto-restores such a backup: --restore auto behaves like ask, and headless it skips the restore and notifies instead.

A saves-only restore keeps the lineage intact (configs don’t count); a partial restore that skips saves makes it unknown until the next backup.

Handoffs without duplicates

After you restore another device’s backup, the next scheduled pass, Smart Backup, or wrapper post-exit backup compares the saves on disk with the newest backup and skips the archive when they’re identical, so a handoff doesn’t produce a duplicate per device. Manual backups always write an archive.

What stays local

Live Protection snapshots stay on the device that took them. The snapshots folder is excluded from cloud sync, so each device’s rolling snapshots and their index never collide. When you update to a version that changes the sync exclusions, SaveVault runs one --resync on the next sync; it only copies, never deletes.

The typical setup

1. Set up cloud backup on each device against the same remote folder, with Bisync After Backup on.
2. Optionally give each device a name you’ll recognize.
3. On the Deck or Frame, add savevault-wrap -- %command% to the games you play on both — see the launch wrapper. It pulls the cloud before launch, offers the other device’s newer backup, and pushes after you quit.
4. On the PC, let scheduled backups and sync after backup handle the rest, and use the Restore page’s device filter when you want a specific machine’s save.

A Unity game played as a Quest port on the Steam Frame and natively on a PC shares the same backup with no remapping — see Steam Deck & handhelds.