Save Management

Every game you import into Sakura keeps its saves in a save folder — a plain directory holding the engine’s own save slots (save0.dat, save1.dat, …) plus the small sidecar files the engine needs to track read text and global state. Sakura never touches the contents of those files; it only manages where the folder lives, how it’s linked, and how it’s backed up.

The first time you launch a game, Sakura shows a Setup Saves screen before the game starts. You’ll choose:

• Storage — Local (“Saves stored on this device”) or iCloud (“Sync saves across devices”). iCloud only appears once you’ve turned on iCloud Saves in Settings and iCloud Drive is available.
• A save folder — link to an existing folder (useful if several versions of a game should share saves) or create a new one by name.

If Sakura finds save files already sitting loose in the game’s own folder — left over from a previous copy of the game — it offers a Migrate existing saves toggle (on by default) that copies them into the new save folder for you.

The Done button’s label changes depending on what you picked, so it always tells you what’s about to happen: Merge & Stack, Use Existing Folder, Migrate & Done, or plain Done.

Open a game’s Save Browser to see its save slots: each row shows the slot label (from the filename), a modified date, and a file size. Saves don’t carry thumbnails — ONScripter engine saves don’t store one — so slots are identified by name and date.

The nav bar’s center pill shows the currently linked save folder’s name and its storage icon (iPhone or iCloud); tap it to change the link.

From the toolbar menu you can:

• Select multiple saves, then back them up, or bundle them into a new folder
• Restore from Backup — pulls in a backup captured by Global Saves
• Import Saves — bring in save files from elsewhere (see below)
• Back Up This Save Folder, Compress and Share, or Delete All Saves from the More submenu

Deleting a save is a soft delete: you get a 5-second Undo before it’s gone for good. Delete All Saves, on the other hand, is immediate and permanent, and says so before you confirm it.

Use Import Saves from the Save Browser’s toolbar to bring in save files from a .zip archive or loose files (save<N>.dat, envdata, envdata.utf, gloval.sav, kidoku.dat). Imported files are merged into the current save folder — same-named files are overwritten, everything else is left alone. If the destination folder already has real saves, Sakura takes a safety backup of it first.

You can also import saves over the network using Web Transfer’s Saves tab, which uploads directly into the selected game’s linked folder.

Encrypted or unreadable zip archives, and files Sakura doesn’t recognize as save-related, are rejected with an explanation rather than silently ignored.

A game’s save link just points it at a save folder by name — it doesn’t copy anything by itself. Because of this, multiple games can deliberately share one save folder (handy for different releases of the same title), and the Global Save Manager shows this as “N games” linked to a folder.

From the Save Browser’s nav-bar pill, Change Link lets you:

• Switch the folder’s storage type between Local and iCloud
• Rename the folder in place — this cascades to every game linked to it
• Point the game at a new folder or an existing one

If you switch to a new folder and the old one already has saves, a Migrate Saves toggle appears with a live count of how many saves it found, so you can bring them along rather than starting fresh.

Choosing iCloud for a save folder doesn’t mean the running game reads and writes iCloud directly — Sakura keeps a local staging copy on the device, and quietly keeps it in sync with iCloud around your play session:

• Before you launch, Sakura pulls down anything newer from iCloud into the staging copy, so you always start with the latest saves from any device.
• While you play, Sakura periodically pushes your new saves from staging up to iCloud in the background, and asks iOS not to evict the cloud files mid-session.
• The moment you exit the game, Sakura pushes staging to iCloud one last time, so nothing from that session is left behind.

If the same save file was changed on two different devices before they had a chance to sync, Sakura shows a Save File Conflicts screen before launch, letting you keep either device’s version — or both — file by file, with a Keep Newest for All shortcut if you’d rather not go one by one.

See Global Saves for backups, the cross-game folder overview, and restoring from a backup.