The Confusing World of GTA V Save Files: Where Are They Hiding?

Grand Theft Auto IV, also known as Grand Theft Auto 4 for short and commonly referred to by its initialism 'GTA IV', is an open-world action-adventure game developed primarily by Rockstar North (formerly known as DMA Design) in collaboration with the American studio Rockstar Leeds. It was published exclusively by parent company Take-Two Interactive's subsidiary Rockstar Games worldwide for several platforms, including Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

As a player who has invested countless hours into GTA V, losing all of your hard-earned progress can be frustrating to say the least. Fortunately, Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) allows players to save their game at various points in time using an autosave feature that automatically saves every so often when certain conditions are met.

However, sometimes this isn't enough and you may need to manually transfer or backup your saved game data yourself - perhaps because of a hardware failure, corruption issues with the original copy of GTA V on Steam/ Rockstar's platform (for PC), etcetera. In either case knowing where these precious save files are located will prove extremely helpful.

Here's how to find them:

Step 1: Locate your Documents folder

* On Windows Vista and later versions, press 'Windows' + R simultaneously

* Type 'Documents' without the quotation marks and hit Enter

Alternatively,

- Press Start (or Win key) then type 'documents' in search bar & press enter.

On Mac OS X:

1. Go to your user's home directory by holding down Shift while double-clicking on either Applications or Desktop.

2. Double click 'Documents' inside this folder

3. Look for a subfolder called Rockstar Games

Step 2: Find the GTA V Folder

* Within the Rockstar Games folder, look for another subdirectory named 'GTA V'

* Inside should be several folders and files related to Grand Theft Auto IV (or whatever version of GTA you're playing)

The exact name may vary depending on your operating system:

- On Windows 7/8/10: It will likely appear as 'Grand Theft Auto IV'

- On Mac OS X Lion or later: Expect something like '_MAS_*/GTA V'

Step 3: Locate the Saved Games Folder

* Within the GTA V folder, you should now see a subdirectory named 'SavedGames' (note the plural form).

* Inside this final location lies your saved game data.

On Mac OS X:

- It's called 'savegame' without an 's'.

Step 4: Move Your Save Files

Once you've located your desired save file(s), simply copy them from their current location and paste them into the corresponding directory on another computer where GTA IV is installed. Make sure to overwrite any existing files with the same name - these are just copies after all!

Remember, if none of these steps work for whatever reason (corrupted saves being one possibility), you may need to start over completely from scratch... but fingers crossed that won't come down to it!

Where to gta v game save stored