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Don't Starve Together: saves, clusters and logs

Updated 2026-10-28 · 5 min read

Don't Starve Together keeps its data in one visible folder inside Documents, with your worlds in a sub-folder named after your Steam account. Here is the path, how worlds and dedicated server clusters are laid out, and how to back up a world.

The location

~/Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether/

That is Klei's folder for Don't Starve Together on a Mac. Klei's support articles put the game's logs, worlds and server files under Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether, and it sits in your Documents folder, so it is not hidden.

To open it, choose Go > Go to Folder (⇧⌘G) in Finder, paste the path and press Return. From Terminal:

open ~/Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether

To list names without opening anything:

ls -la ~/Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether

What you will find inside

• A folder named only with a number. This is your account folder. Steam's cloud configuration for the game names it after your Steam account ID, and PCGamingWiki lists client.ini (client settings) inside it.
• Worlds you host from the game. Klei's bug-report article puts these in <number>/Cluster_<n>/, with Master and Caves folders inside, one per shard.
• Worlds saved to Steam Cloud. The same article puts these in <number>/CloudSaves/<long ID>/, where the shards are Master.zip and Caves.zip.
• client_log.txt. Klei's bug-report guide puts the client log directly in DoNotStarveTogether.
• backup. PCGamingWiki lists a backup folder here as part of the save data.
• Dedicated server clusters, if you run one on this Mac (see below), and cluster_token.txt if you generated a server token from the game's console, which the game's wiki says lands at the top of this folder.

A world's folder is named by number (Cluster_1, Cluster_2 and so on), not by the name you gave the world, so tell worlds apart by their modified dates, or simply back them all up together.

A dedicated server cluster

A "cluster" is one world made of shards: a Master shard for the surface and a Caves shard if you run caves. The game's wiki says the server looks for its configuration at <persistent storage root>/<conf dir>/<cluster name>, with defaults of ~/Documents/Klei on macOS, DoNotStarveTogether and Cluster_1. So a default dedicated server cluster sits directly in the folder, not under your account number:

~/Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether/Cluster_1/

The wiki describes this layout inside a cluster:

Item	Purpose
cluster.ini	Settings shared by the whole cluster
cluster_token.txt	The server token, one line
adminlist.txt, whitelist.txt, blocklist.txt	One user ID per line
Master/ and Caves/	One folder per shard, each with its own server.ini and the world files

cluster_token.txt works like a password for your server, so do not share it or post it with a bug report. Launch flags choose the folder: Klei's support page says that if you start the server with -cluster NAME, server_log.txt ends up in DoNotStarveTogether/NAME. On Steam, the Mac server is the free "Don't Starve Together Dedicated Server" tool, and Steam's configuration for it launches dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.app, which is why Mac server guides look different from Linux ones.

Back up your worlds

Worlds are stored on the host's computer. If you hosted the game, the save is on your Mac and not on your friends' machines.

1. Quit Don't Starve Together, and stop any dedicated server.
2. In Finder, copy the whole DoNotStarveTogether folder to somewhere else, such as an external drive.
3. To restore, quit the game and put the copy back in the same place.

Copy the folder, do not move it. Klei's Mac troubleshooting article opens with the same advice: make a backup of Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether before anything else.

Steam Cloud

PCGamingWiki describes Steam Cloud for this game as limited: you choose per world whether to save it in the Steam Cloud, and some client data, such as wardrobe outfits and obituaries, is not synced. Steam's configuration syncs only the CloudSaves folder inside your account folder (plus a matching folder for the beta branch, DoNotStarveTogetherBetaBranch). A world in a Cluster_<n> folder is local only, so your own backup is the only copy.

When the game cannot read the folder

Klei has an article for Macs on Catalina and later where the game reports "Unable to read from config directory". The cause is macOS privacy controls: Documents is a protected folder, and the game needs permission to use it. If it was refused, the game may have started a fresh account folder and appear to have lost your worlds.

Klei's fix is to grant the game access, which on recent macOS means System Settings > Privacy & Security > Files & Folders (or Full Disk Access), where the game appears as dontstarve_steam. Klei's article names the older System Preferences panes and also tells you to delete a number-named folder the game created. Be careful there: a number-named folder is also where your worlds normally live, so make the backup first, compare dates and contents, and only move the new, empty one to the Trash.

Steam and other copies

On Steam, the game itself is dontstarve_steam.app in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Don't Starve Together/, separate from your worlds in Documents/Klei. The original single-player Don't Starve uses a different folder, ~/Documents/Klei/DoNotStarve/, so do not mix the two up when you restore a backup.

Why a normal search misses it

Folders in Documents are searchable, but the files inside a world are named by the game, not after your world, and the account folder has no readable name at all. Look for cluster.ini, server.ini or server_log.txt, and you get one hit per cluster and shard.

Finding it again

Type DoNotStarveTogether or Cluster_1 into Everywhere to jump straight to the folder, even after you move a backup to an external drive, and use ⌘↵ to reveal the match in Finder. Documents is a protected folder, so Everywhere lists these files once it has Full Disk Access. It matches file and folder names only, so it will not find a world by the name you gave it.

Common questions

Where are Don't Starve Together saves on Mac?

In ~/Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether/. Worlds you host from the game are in a number-named account folder inside it, as Cluster_1, Cluster_2 and so on.

Where is the dedicated server cluster folder on Mac?

By default ~/Documents/Klei/DoNotStarveTogether/Cluster_1/, with Master and Caves shard folders inside. Launching with -cluster NAME uses a folder called NAME instead.

How do I back up my Don't Starve Together world?

Quit the game and stop any server, then copy the whole DoNotStarveTogether folder to another location. Worlds not saved to Steam Cloud exist only on the host's Mac.

Why does Don't Starve Together say it cannot read the config directory?

On Macs from Catalina onward the game may lack permission to use Documents. Back up the folder, then allow dontstarve_steam under Privacy & Security, Files & Folders or Full Disk Access.