Where Does DayZ Store Profiles and Config?
Where DayZ keeps profiles and config locally on PC, and why your character is never among them.
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DayZ stores your survivor on the central hive against your Steam ID: coordinates, inventory and stats never touch your disk. What lives locally are profiles (name, skin, squad data) in Documents\DayZ and caches plus logs under %LOCALAPPDATA%\DayZ.
Private shards complicate the story: each runs its own local hive, so characters do not transfer between community servers. Back up the profile folder for settings continuity, and accept that the survivor belongs to whichever hive you play on.
Where DayZ stores this, by platform
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\DayZ
Search for chars.DayZProfile if the folder seems empty: profiles generate on first launch. The -profiles launch parameter relocates the whole tree. Characters themselves live server side.
Frequently asked questions
How do I move my DayZ setup to a new PC?
Copy the Documents\DayZ folder with the game closed. Paste it to the same path on the new machine before first launch. Server favorites and graphics travel; the survivor rebuilds from the hive on first connect.
How do I relocate DayZ profiles off C:?
Add -profiles=<path> to the Steam launch options. Logs, caches and profiles then generate under your path instead of defaults. Old files stay behind rather than migrating, so copy anything worth keeping across by hand.
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