Where Are Pillars of Eternity Save Files Located?
The original Pillars stores saves in a Saved Games folder on every desktop OS, straight from Obsidian's own support docs.
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Obsidian documents this one themselves, rare and welcome. Pillars of Eternity keeps saves in the platform's Saved Games location with no launcher specific variants and no per store surprises.
Each save is a folder containing the area states, so copying means folders rather than files. The temp directory beside it holds live session state the developers warn against moving. Back up the Saved Games tree and ignore everything else.
Where Pillars of Eternity stores this, by platform
%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity
Each save is a subfolder here. Temp session state lives elsewhere and must not be copied between machines.
~/Library/Application Support/Pillars of Eternity/Saved Games
Same folder structure as Windows. App Store copies instead use a Containers path with com.mpdigital.pillarsofeternity in it.
~/.local/share/PillarsOfEternity/SavedGames
Same folder structure as Windows. Honors XDG_DATA_HOME when set, falling back to ~/.local/share otherwise.
Frequently asked questions
Can I move saves between Windows and Mac?
Copy the Saved Games folder contents across with the game closed. The format matches on all three systems, and Steam Cloud aside, manual copies just work. Beta saves from 2015 used different paths and do not transfer.
There is a second Pillars folder in temp. Copy that too?
Those live in the temp directory the game maintains for current state, explicitly not for sharing. Copy only the Saved Games folders. Temp state breaks when moved and the game rebuilds it anyway.
Notice an outdated path? Let us know.