So, you’ve got a shiny new laptop and the first thing you want to do is shift your Football Manager saves to the new computer. Of course, you do. You’re only human. Here we’re going to show you where to find your Football Manager saves and how to transfer them to another computer.
Where are Football Manager saves stored?
This depends on which version of the game you’re playing, but here we’re going to deal with PC and Mac.
On the PC, your saved games are saved by default in the following folder:
C:\Users\[Your Windows Username]\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2022\games
(If you’re still running FM21, it will be ‘Football Manager 2021’ rather than ‘2022’.)
On a Mac, the default folder for your saves will be:
Users\[Your Mac Username]\Library\Application Support\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2022\games
It’s slightly tricker to find this file on a Mac, because the Library folder is hidden by default. The easiest way to find it is to open a Finder window, click Go in the Menu Bar at the top of the screen, hold down the Option key on your keyboard and Library should appear in the list of destinations below. Now you can navigate to the saved games folder using the path above.
It is, of course, entirely possible that you chose a different destination for your saved games when you first saved your game. If you did, you’ll simply have to hunt down the location in which you chose to save the game. If you’ve forgotten where that is, you can load your last saved game from within Football Manager, then select FM from the top in-game menu, Save As and click the Browse button. That will reveal which folder the game is saved in.
How to transfer your saved Football Manager game to a new PC
Now you’ve (hopefully) tracked down your saved game files, how do you transfer them to the new computer? Here’s how:
Time needed: 5 minutes
How to move FM saves from one computer to another
- Install FM on the new PC
The first thing you need to do is install Football Manager on the new computer. It must be the same version (ie. FM21, FM22) as your saved game and it must be running the same patch. The easiest way to do this is to install the game via Steam or the Epic Games Store, which will automatically ensure you have the latest version of the game on your computer.
- Copy the saved game file
Now you need to copy the saved game file from your old computer. You can do this using a USB stick or copy it to an online storage service such as Dropbox or OneDrive. Just drag and drop the game from the folder we identified above to the USB stick/online storage folder. Make sure you select the correct file. If you’ve got autosaves switched on, you might have several versions of the same saved game file. Look at the dates and make sure you’ve selected the latest one.
- Drop the saved game file in the folder on the new PC
Now you need to copy the saved game file to the exact same folder on the new PC. So, if you’ve used the default folder on a PC, that is the same folder as we identified above: C:\Users\[Your Windows Username]\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2022\games. It’s possible that the ‘games’ folder doesn’t exist on the new PC, because you’ve not saved a game on it yet. If that’s the case, simply create a folder called ‘games’ in the ‘Football Manager 2022’ folder. Make sure ‘games’ has a lowercase ‘g’.
- Re-install any face packs, logo packs etc
Remember that cosmetic items such as face packs, logo packs etc are not stored with saved games. If you had any of these installed on your old computer, you’ll either need to transfer them or re-download them on the new computer. This stuff is normally stored in the ‘graphics’ folder.
Alternative ways to transfer saved games
You can save some of the palaver above by simply saving your games to an online service such as Dropbox or OneDrive in the first place. Then, as long as you’ve got Dropbox/OneDrive installed on your new computer, you can load the game from there and resume from where you left off.
To save a game to Dropbox/OneDrive etc, open your current game, then choose FM > Save as and navigate to the Dropbox/OneDrive folder on your computer. You might want to create a specific folder in your Dropbox/OneDrive for saved games. The additional benefit of saving your game to Dropbox etc is that, should the saved game file corrupt, you can turn the clock back and re-load a previous version of the file.
It’s also worth mentioning that FM has a built-in cloud save feature, where your games are saved to Steam. You can find this in the Save As menu by clicking the button that says ‘Local’ and instead choosing ‘Cloud’. Personally, I’d prefer to use a service such as Dropbox because it gives me complete control over the saved game files and allows you to use that rewind feature on corrupted saves, but it’s another easy-to-use option for playing saves across multiple PCs.
Click here to find out how to make money in FM22.
I wondered if there was a way of transfering the DATA Editor like when you’ve edited a database using the editor can you then transfer it to another computer. I dont like the new FM so I still play the FM2009.