This one is fiddlier than most games because Palworld names save folders with a long hex ID. Read the whole block before starting.
1
Stop the server from the Console tab in the panel.
2
On your machine, open %localappdata%\Pal\Saved\SaveGames. Inside you will find a numeric folder, and inside that one folder per world with a long hex name.
3
Work out which is the right world by modified date, then zip that hex folder.
4
In Files, navigate to Pal/Saved/SaveGames/0/. There will already be a hex folder there from the server generating its own world.
5
Write down the existing folder name — you need it in a moment. Then rename it rather than deleting it, so you can undo this if the upload goes wrong.
6
Upload your zip and unarchive it, then rename your folder to exactly the name the server had generated. This is the step people miss.
7
Start the server and check the console for errors. If you spawn into a fresh world, the folder name did not match.
🔒
Set a server password
Palworld servers get found and joined by strangers quickly. A password is the simplest fix.
1
Stop the server.
2
In Files, open Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/PalWorldSettings.ini.
3
Set ServerPassword="yourpassword". Keep the quotes — the file will not parse without them.
4
While you are in there, ServerName and ServerDescription control how it appears in the list.
5
Some eggs also expose these on the Startup tab, and those values can overwrite the ini on boot. If your change keeps reverting, that is why — set it on the Startup tab instead.
6
Save and start the server.
⚙️
Change the rates and rules
Same file as the password. All of these are multipliers where 1.000000 is the default, and the server has to be restarted for any of it to apply.
1
Open PalWorldSettings.ini as above.
2
ExpRate, PalCaptureRate and CollectionDropRate are the three that change the feel of the game most.
3
DayTimeSpeedRate and NightTimeSpeedRate — raising the night rate is the usual fix for nights dragging.
4
DeathPenalty controls what you drop when you die. ServerPlayerMaxNum sets the player cap.
5
Change a few at a time. If the server stops booting after an edit, it is almost always a broken value in this file.
6
Save and restart.
👥
Let your friends help run it
You can give friends access to the Palworld server without ever sharing your account password. Sub-users get their own login and only the permissions you tick.
1
Open your server in the panel and go to the Users tab.
2
Click New User and enter their email address.
3
Tick the permissions you want them to have — Control for start/stop/restart and console, File for the file manager and SFTP.
4
They will get an email invite. Once they register they can manage the server from their own panel account.
💾
Keep your own backups
There are no server-side backups here. Every server has a backup allowance of zero — storing hundreds of gigabytes for a service nobody pays for is not something we can justify, so the Backups tab will not help you. The only copy of your world that exists is the one you download. Do this before any big change.
1
Stop the server from the Console tab in the panel. Archiving files while the server is writing to them is how you end up with a corrupt copy.
2
Open the Files tab and tick the box next to your save folder.
3
Click Archive. The panel packs the folder into a single file in the server root.
4
Click that archive and choose Download. For a large world, pull it over SFTP instead — browser downloads of multi-gigabyte files have a habit of failing near the end.
5
Delete the archive off the server once you have it, so it is not eating your disk space.
6
Keep the file somewhere safe. A server nobody plays on for seven days is removed, and your download is the only thing that survives that.