To back up your PS4 game saves, you have two main options: using a USB storage device or using cloud storage through PlayStation Plus. Here’s how you can do both:
1. Backing Up to a USB Storage Device
- Prepare the USB Drive:
- Ensure your USB drive is formatted to FAT32 or exFAT. You can format it on your PC if necessary.
- Insert the USB drive into one of the USB ports on your PS4.
- Copy Saves to USB:
- Go to the PS4 home screen and navigate to Settings.
- Select Application Saved Data Management.
- Choose Saved Data in System Storage.
- Select Copy to USB Storage Device.
- Choose the game save data you want to back up. You can select multiple files or all of them at once.
- Confirm your selection, and the data will be copied to the USB drive.
2. Backing Up to Cloud Storage (PlayStation Plus Required)
- Subscribe to PlayStation Plus:
- Ensure you have an active PlayStation Plus subscription.
- Enable Automatic Uploads (Optional):
- Go to Settings.
- Select Application Saved Data Management.
- Choose Auto-Upload and enable it. This ensures your game saves are automatically backed up to the cloud.
- Manually Upload Saves:
- Go to Settings.
- Select Application Saved Data Management.
- Choose Saved Data in System Storage.
- Select Upload to Online Storage.
- Choose the game save data you want to upload. You can select multiple files or all of them at once.
- Confirm your selection, and the data will be uploaded to the cloud.
Restoring Game Saves
To restore your game saves from a USB drive or cloud storage, you can follow similar steps but choose Copy to System Storage (from USB) or Download to System Storage (from cloud) instead of the upload/copy options.
By regularly backing up your game saves, you can ensure that your progress is safe in case of hardware failure or if you need to transfer your saves to another PS4.