Where Are Hearts of Iron 4 Saves and Mods Located?
Where Hearts of Iron IV keeps campaigns, mods and settings on Windows, macOS and Linux, in the standard Paradox layout.
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Hearts of Iron 4 follows the standard Paradox layout: campaigns sit in a save games folder under Documents\Paradox Interactive\Hearts of Iron IV, one file per run. Mods, logs and settings are siblings of that folder, so one parent copy grabs everything.
Ironman and cloud saves cause the usual confusion. They sync through cloud storage rather than the plain folder, so a campaign that exists on one PC can be absent from the local path on another. Linux uses ~/.local/share regardless of XDG overrides, matching the other Paradox titles.
Where Hearts of Iron IV stores this, by platform
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Hearts of Iron IV\save games
Paste %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Hearts of Iron IV into Explorer. Campaigns are in save games, mods in mod, settings in settings.txt at the same level.
~/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Hearts of Iron IV/save games
Same layout as Windows, under your Mac Documents folder. Use Go > Go to Folder in Finder, since Paradox Interactive sits a few levels deep.
~/.local/share/Paradox Interactive/Hearts of Iron IV/save games
The game ignores XDG_DATA_HOME, so look here even on customized systems. Mods sit in ~/.local/share/Paradox Interactive/Hearts of Iron IV/mod beside saves.
Frequently asked questions
How do I back up a Hearts of Iron 4 campaign?
Copy the .hoi4 file out of save games while the game is closed. Ironman saves sync through the Paradox or Steam cloud instead, so check those folders if a campaign is missing locally. Achievements need unmodded Ironman.
Where is the Hearts of Iron 4 mod folder?
Mods live in the mod folder beside save games, with a .mod descriptor plus a folder per mod. The in game launcher rebuilds load order, so copy both the descriptor and the folder when migrating.
Notice an outdated path? Let us know.