Where apps hide your files

Finding your Baldur's Gate 3 saves and mods

Updated 2026-10-28 · 6 min read

Baldur's Gate 3 keeps your saves in a Larian Studios folder inside Documents, separate from the game files that Steam installs. Once you know that split, backing up a save, moving to a new Mac or adding mods is a matter of copying folders.

The save folder

~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story

That is the path Larian's own support page gives for Mac saves. Each save is its own folder inside Story. In Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder (or press ⇧⌘G), paste the path and press Return. From Terminal:

open ~/Documents/Larian\ Studios/Baldur\'s\ Gate\ 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story

The apostrophe in the name is why the Terminal version looks messy. If you would rather not escape anything, open ~/Documents/Larian Studios in Finder and click down through the folders.

If the folder is missing, you have not saved a game yet, or you are looking at a different Mac. Larian's page says each save is a folder you can right-click and compress to a ZIP, which is a handy way to send one to support or a friend.

Two folders, two jobs

Baldur's Gate 3 splits into the game itself and your data. Mixing them up is the usual reason people cannot find a save.

What	Where
Saves	~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story
Settings and other game data	~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/ (Larian's guides use this as the base folder for config files)
Launcher run log	~/Documents/Larian Studios/Launcher/Logs (the file is runlog.txt, per Larian's support page)
Crash reports	~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports (Larian also lists the older ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter), or the crash reports listed in the Console app
Game files from Steam	~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/, in a folder named after the game

The Steam path is Steam's standard library location on a Mac. If you chose another library drive in Steam, the game files are on that drive instead, in the same steamapps/common structure. Your saves stay in Documents either way. Steam was not installed on the Mac used for this guide, so the Documents paths come from Larian's documentation rather than a local check.

Which save is which

Inside Story you will find one folder per save, including quicksaves and autosaves. The game names these folders itself, so they will not match the name you typed in the save menu. Sort the folder by Date Modified in Finder (View > as List) and the newest save is at the top. Each folder holds the save itself, an .lsv file, and a .WebP preview image of where you saved. Do not rename the files inside; copy the whole folder if you need to keep a labelled backup.

Backing up a save before you experiment

Quit the game first, then copy the whole Story folder somewhere else, for example to a dated folder on an external drive. To back up a single playthrough, copy only its save folders. To restore, quit the game, put the folders back inside Story and launch. Do not edit files inside a save folder: a changed save can fail to load.

Moving to a new Mac

1. On the old Mac, quit the game and copy ~/Documents/Larian Studios to a drive or cloud folder you trust.
2. Install the game on the new Mac and launch it once, so the folders are created.
3. Quit, then copy your saves into PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story on the new Mac.
4. Launch and check Load Game.

Steam Cloud may also sync saves between machines on its own. Do not rely on that as your only backup, since a corrupted save syncs just like a good one.

Mods

Since Patch 7 (it reached Mac with Hotfix 27 in 2024), Baldur's Gate 3 has an official in-game mod manager that downloads mods from mod.io, so most players no longer need to touch any folder. For mods installed by hand, community guides for the Mac version give the mods folder as:

~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/Mods

and say to create it if it does not exist. They also describe a settings file, modsettings.lsx, in PlayerProfiles/Public, which lists the active mods and their order. Older guides edited that file by hand, and the process changed with the Patch 7 mod manager. Follow the instructions on each mod's own page, and back up the Larian Studios folder before you change anything. Mods that need extra libraries or Windows-only tools may not work on a Mac at all.

If a mod breaks your game, quit it, move the mod's file out of Mods (to the Desktop, not the Trash, until you are sure) and start the game again.

Space and what to leave alone

The game files in Steam are the large part, not the saves. Check with:

du -sh ~/Documents/Larian\ Studios

Saves grow over a long playthrough but stay small next to the install. If you need disk space, uninstall or move the Steam copy through Steam, and leave Documents/Larian Studios alone. Never delete the Savegames folder unless you mean to lose every playthrough.

Why searches miss these files

The saves sit in Documents, which Finder's normal search covers, but the save folders carry generated names and your keyword will not match them. Anything under ~/Library, such as the Steam game files and crash reports, is left out of ordinary Spotlight and Finder searches.

Finding them again later

Typing Larian into Everywhere lists the Larian Studios folders and everything inside them by name, and typing Savegames or modsettings jumps straight to those. Documents is a macOS-protected folder, so Everywhere finds it once it has Full Disk Access. Press ⌘↵ to reveal a result in Finder. It matches file names only, not what is inside a save.

Common questions

Where are Baldur's Gate 3 saves on Mac?

In ~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/Public/Savegames/Story, one folder per save. They are not in the Steam folder.

Where is the Baldur's Gate 3 mods folder on Mac?

Since Patch 7 the game has a built-in mod manager that handles mods for you. For manual installs, community guides for the Mac version give ~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/Mods, which you create if it is missing.

How do I back up my Baldur's Gate 3 saves?

Quit the game and copy the Story folder (or just the folders for one playthrough) to another drive. To restore, quit the game and put the folders back.

Where are Baldur's Gate 3 crash logs on Mac?

Larian's support page points to the crash reports listed in the Console app, or to ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports (or the older ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter). The launcher log runlog.txt is in ~/Documents/Larian Studios/Launcher/Logs.