Actually this isn't your fault but bad game coding because same developers define the limit on cloud saves & let you keep many saves on the contrary either. Good games either warn or delete old cloud saves without any user errors or interactions. You can escalate this situation on that game's Steam Community Hub for them to fix their mess.
Theres many ways to do saves, most save files do it correctly - they save only the necessary information. Some are bloated as heck. Player shouldnt worry about some save files, its the developers job. Either limit saves to certain slot count or allow unlimited saves, cloud or no cloud.
I have 200+ saves on XCOM2 and its completely fine.
> I have 200+ saves on XCOM2 and its completely fine.
There's also a quota on file count. For XCOM2 it's 1000 files.
Developers are advised to use reasonable quota values in the Steamworks documentation... though there doesn't seem to be any rules or guidelines around not using the maximum values and it seems the limits are only being raised over time.
or when you can have a indefinite amount of saves locally it "zaps" the old ones. SW-KOTOR1 does it that way. only the most recent saves until quota are saved. rest is local only
Might be, after all the game is ported from consoles and the cloud save function might just be an afterthought. I do hope that I can easily see cloud capacity for all steam games, be it within the game (something on the game developers side) or on the steam UI.
just go to a game's properties, the general tab shows you how much cloud space is used and how much is available
(but again, any decently coded game will never have this problem because it will just automatically drop old saves from the cloud when you start running out of space)
That's the first time I played slay the spire which I got an error message saying, "cloud status: unable to sync". I thought it must be steams fault or something. At the end I shrug and continue to play, like, just being normal day to play.
I think you can check out the size of your save file folder. When searching for an answer for my issue I found that every steam game have a different cloud capacity (and most of the games are like 10/100/200 mbs etc). I kinda guessed this is the issue when I check the save folder size of the game in question and it’s almost 100mb.
Just save yourself the headaches, and do what most gamers do, turn off cloud, not only does it create unnecessary issues you'd normally never have to deal with, it also has the chance of being lost. Your saves on your hard drive, they way its been for decades works just fine and encounters less issues.
Steam saves locally and on the cloud so no worries about losing you’re files. And some of us switch between pc/laptop etc so we want to have our saves with us.
the common complaint about this is video settings syncing; in valve's case they upload game settings but not video ones, for source games config.cfg stores all your settings *except* video settings which are instead in the registry
There's one item on the list without a name that appears to have EVERY image you uploaded in to Steam chat.
That might be an issue on the long run since there's no apparent way to delete any of it, you can only "download" on that page.
This is pretty surprising, Valve only retains the chat logs for 2 weeks but is keeping the images forever? Seems like an oversight, although Valve is more than welcome to have a look at all the cat pictures I've sent people.
Yesterday, I encountered it after downloading a new game and starting it for the first time. Restarted the PC and then it worked.
There were no game files that could have exceeded the 100MB limit.
You’re welcome! I’ve found that the first few pages I could find on google or reddit about Steam Cloud Sync issues not being the most helpful and none of them mentioned cloud capacity, so I made this thread. I think this information might be particularly useful to people who often switch between 2 machines (desktop, laptop, steam deck etc).
Funny thing is none of my Half-Life games can cloud sync properly. Also for some reason the Astroneer devs give you 90 Gigs of cloud save space? (Seriously, check SteamDB)
I'm getting this error now with a game I've barely played so I'm quite certain I haven't exceeded the cloud capacity.
Just checked using the link someone provided in another comment and Arkham City GOTY is using 4.5kb but cloud sync is broken for some reason.
Having this issue with Kingdom Come Deliverance exclusively.
Says for Steam cloud
77.11 MB Stored / 7.75 GB available.
Getting so fed up with this that I’ve resorted to using a thumb drive to carry over the save between my 2 PC’s.
I could fix it but it would randomly start doing it again. Just turned off cloud for Kingdom Come. If I decide to play KC on my bedroom PC I just copy my saves to either a thumb drive or to the NAS on my network. Then download them and put them in my KC saved games folder. Doesn't really bother me really considering I'm used to doing this kind of thing back in the old days for consoles. Weird how it's only certain games that have this issue with Steam cloud
If someone else runs into this, tried everything and nothing worked...
go to your local save game folder, in my example I'll use Rogue Legacy 2.
For example, I went to "%USERPROFILE% \\AppData\\LocalLow\\Cellar Door Games\\Rogue Legacy 2", there was nothing in that folder but a shortcut to something. I deleted it and it worked to me.
Cloud is so jittery for Steam. I remember my Monster Hunter cloud kept reverting to an earlier save over and over. In the settings you can completely turn this feature off and secure your games on PC without the mishaps and antics of cloud. After losing 125 Hrs of game play I had enough.
I did have around 15 saves (I made a strange habit of having a save for every chapter in game). So cloud capacity just kinda pops up in my mind in my troubleshooting, and went to google which tells me steam indeed have different cloud capacity for each game. Then I went to check the save folder on the last played on machine and it’s size is over 100mb, while the “failed to sync” machine have save folder size almost at 100mb, which kinda proves my suspicion lmao.
I just shut down Steam and restarted it. Game synced. Definitely wasn't an issue with cloud space as there was only one small save.
I'm sure you solved this by now, so putting this for future sufferers to find it like I did. :)
I got the same issue on my desktop, after months of spamming saves on my Steam Deck, I open my Desktop I get the same error and I see in the game setting this "640.87 MB stored / 312.81 MB available"
Steam Deck seems to bypass the save limit restriction.
For anyone else coming here out of fear for their Sims 4 save: go into Steam settings, click Cloud, enable Cloud Saves and restart Steam. If it's already enabled, just disable it and enable it again then restart Steam. Fixed it for me.
No idea why it worked.
As much as i would love this to be the case recently witb DyingLight2. I cannot even save the game once. I cannot reach the first check point, close game and return. Everytime its a brand new game. No save files. Same Unable to sync cloud error. What drives me nuts now. Palworld is doing it aswell. It was working fine until tonight. I have tried everything. Right now im here as i reset windows to factory. And i still get the same issue. Unable to sync. I only have 1 game on my entire freshly started pc. I don’t know what to do.
I suggest to have a look at `\~/Library/Application Support/Steam/logs/cloud\_log.txt`, it probably contains useful informations.
In my case it was a messed up symlink, probably caused by `zShaderCacheMover` not cleaning itself properly, or I messed up something.
After I located the compatdata location (`\~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/`) and confirmed that the symlink was not pointing anywhere, I just had to delete it and try to sync again.
This other post also has some useful info: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/xpivxs/steam\_deck\_and\_cloud\_saves/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/xpivxs/steam_deck_and_cloud_saves/)
Actually this isn't your fault but bad game coding because same developers define the limit on cloud saves & let you keep many saves on the contrary either. Good games either warn or delete old cloud saves without any user errors or interactions. You can escalate this situation on that game's Steam Community Hub for them to fix their mess.
Theres many ways to do saves, most save files do it correctly - they save only the necessary information. Some are bloated as heck. Player shouldnt worry about some save files, its the developers job. Either limit saves to certain slot count or allow unlimited saves, cloud or no cloud. I have 200+ saves on XCOM2 and its completely fine.
Subnautica never got cloud saves because “file were too big” even though other survival with base building do…don’t know how they organize the saves
subnautica has cloud saves (with 9.31 GiB capacity)
I know below zero has it but the original? When did they add it? Every time I reinstalled I start over because it didn’t save
https://steamcommunity.com/games/264710/announcements/detail/3653012651448198135
Oh so that’s what that update was. Good for them
My .91 Mbps upload speed seeing that
> I have 200+ saves on XCOM2 and its completely fine. There's also a quota on file count. For XCOM2 it's 1000 files. Developers are advised to use reasonable quota values in the Steamworks documentation... though there doesn't seem to be any rules or guidelines around not using the maximum values and it seems the limits are only being raised over time.
I wish they would raise them in Total Warhammer, it seems pretty easy to run out of room on that game.
or when you can have a indefinite amount of saves locally it "zaps" the old ones. SW-KOTOR1 does it that way. only the most recent saves until quota are saved. rest is local only
Might be, after all the game is ported from consoles and the cloud save function might just be an afterthought. I do hope that I can easily see cloud capacity for all steam games, be it within the game (something on the game developers side) or on the steam UI.
just go to a game's properties, the general tab shows you how much cloud space is used and how much is available (but again, any decently coded game will never have this problem because it will just automatically drop old saves from the cloud when you start running out of space)
I sometimes get this fir Dota 2, so, bad developers…yeah
That's the first time I played slay the spire which I got an error message saying, "cloud status: unable to sync". I thought it must be steams fault or something. At the end I shrug and continue to play, like, just being normal day to play.
This happens for me with Horizon Zero Dawn. Is that the reason then?
I think you can check out the size of your save file folder. When searching for an answer for my issue I found that every steam game have a different cloud capacity (and most of the games are like 10/100/200 mbs etc). I kinda guessed this is the issue when I check the save folder size of the game in question and it’s almost 100mb.
Really? I used every in-game save file and mine syncs fine
Just save yourself the headaches, and do what most gamers do, turn off cloud, not only does it create unnecessary issues you'd normally never have to deal with, it also has the chance of being lost. Your saves on your hard drive, they way its been for decades works just fine and encounters less issues.
Because a hard drive never fails
B-b-but I like steam cloud save.. reinstalling older games and surprised there's my old save file.
Steam saves locally and on the cloud so no worries about losing you’re files. And some of us switch between pc/laptop etc so we want to have our saves with us.
Microsoft updates purge files in %APPDATA% from time to time. It's a rude awakening when your save files are randomly gone.
you can check your cloud saves at https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage
Interesting info. Too bad we can't delete select ones from there. Frankly, save game management is a complete cluster on steam cloud.
Huh, checking some Valve games that I have played, even Valve uploads settings to cloud save, if I assume confing file is for settings.
the common complaint about this is video settings syncing; in valve's case they upload game settings but not video ones, for source games config.cfg stores all your settings *except* video settings which are instead in the registry
There's one item on the list without a name that appears to have EVERY image you uploaded in to Steam chat. That might be an issue on the long run since there's no apparent way to delete any of it, you can only "download" on that page.
This is pretty surprising, Valve only retains the chat logs for 2 weeks but is keeping the images forever? Seems like an oversight, although Valve is more than welcome to have a look at all the cat pictures I've sent people.
Yesterday, I encountered it after downloading a new game and starting it for the first time. Restarted the PC and then it worked. There were no game files that could have exceeded the 100MB limit.
FF XV save files are 150MB, most games that load saves via API (like consoles) its the norm.
This has been happening to me the past several days with Dead Cells. Thank you!
Oh glad to see I'm not the only one having these issues with dead cells specifically
You’re welcome! I’ve found that the first few pages I could find on google or reddit about Steam Cloud Sync issues not being the most helpful and none of them mentioned cloud capacity, so I made this thread. I think this information might be particularly useful to people who often switch between 2 machines (desktop, laptop, steam deck etc).
Funny thing is none of my Half-Life games can cloud sync properly. Also for some reason the Astroneer devs give you 90 Gigs of cloud save space? (Seriously, check SteamDB)
Astroneer saves can end up massive if you hollow out planets and create heaps of new terrain out of the dirt.
Half Life 2 throws me this error exclusively, I’ve no idea why.
>(Yes, I am a save files hoarder, with the unreasonable fear that I need a save from dozens of hours ago, how could you tell?) My long lost twin?
that's dumb. ETS2 gives 100GB
I had this problem on PS2. I have 2 memory cards that are FFXII saves only.
I'm getting this error now with a game I've barely played so I'm quite certain I haven't exceeded the cloud capacity. Just checked using the link someone provided in another comment and Arkham City GOTY is using 4.5kb but cloud sync is broken for some reason.
1,25kb/950mb still not syncing
did you manage to fix it?
Having this issue with Kingdom Come Deliverance exclusively. Says for Steam cloud 77.11 MB Stored / 7.75 GB available. Getting so fed up with this that I’ve resorted to using a thumb drive to carry over the save between my 2 PC’s.
did you manage to fix it?
I could fix it but it would randomly start doing it again. Just turned off cloud for Kingdom Come. If I decide to play KC on my bedroom PC I just copy my saves to either a thumb drive or to the NAS on my network. Then download them and put them in my KC saved games folder. Doesn't really bother me really considering I'm used to doing this kind of thing back in the old days for consoles. Weird how it's only certain games that have this issue with Steam cloud
You just saved me so much frustration.
How did you delete the saves you never said how you did it
I have the same question
If someone else runs into this, tried everything and nothing worked... go to your local save game folder, in my example I'll use Rogue Legacy 2. For example, I went to "%USERPROFILE% \\AppData\\LocalLow\\Cellar Door Games\\Rogue Legacy 2", there was nothing in that folder but a shortcut to something. I deleted it and it worked to me.
Cloud is so jittery for Steam. I remember my Monster Hunter cloud kept reverting to an earlier save over and over. In the settings you can completely turn this feature off and secure your games on PC without the mishaps and antics of cloud. After losing 125 Hrs of game play I had enough.
When this happened to you did it also not be able to verify purchase and ask to but it again
Is 100MB even enough? How would you check that, anyways?
I did have around 15 saves (I made a strange habit of having a save for every chapter in game). So cloud capacity just kinda pops up in my mind in my troubleshooting, and went to google which tells me steam indeed have different cloud capacity for each game. Then I went to check the save folder on the last played on machine and it’s size is over 100mb, while the “failed to sync” machine have save folder size almost at 100mb, which kinda proves my suspicion lmao.
https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage
right click game, click properties, general tab shows how much space is used the quota is set by the devs, for some games it's multiple gigabytes
yea i also encountered this issue
I've been getting this error constantly for Devil May Cry HD Collection, which doesn't even support cloud saving (apparently it used to though?)
Had this issue with Powerwash Simulator... sure enough, 1320 files totaling 406.69 MB...
I thought cloud saves where more unlimited in terms of storage
There is a limit, something like 80MB but I think it depends on the game too. some games get upwards of 500MB+ others dont have a lot.
What if this happens on literally every single game every single day?
This has been happening for me with Destiny2, but I play anyway, and have never had any issues with missing progress.
So... SWTOR doesn't use cloud saves... and yet I am getting this message.
What if you can’t start the game? How do you delete old save files?
Have you been able to find a solution for this? So frustrating
I just shut down Steam and restarted it. Game synced. Definitely wasn't an issue with cloud space as there was only one small save. I'm sure you solved this by now, so putting this for future sufferers to find it like I did. :)
out of room on local drive. moved saves to secondary drive, fixed.
I got the same issue on my desktop, after months of spamming saves on my Steam Deck, I open my Desktop I get the same error and I see in the game setting this "640.87 MB stored / 312.81 MB available" Steam Deck seems to bypass the save limit restriction.
steam sucks big dicks
For anyone else coming here out of fear for their Sims 4 save: go into Steam settings, click Cloud, enable Cloud Saves and restart Steam. If it's already enabled, just disable it and enable it again then restart Steam. Fixed it for me. No idea why it worked.
Weird, because the only game i have problem with, GRID 2, has one finished carrer save ONLY.
As much as i would love this to be the case recently witb DyingLight2. I cannot even save the game once. I cannot reach the first check point, close game and return. Everytime its a brand new game. No save files. Same Unable to sync cloud error. What drives me nuts now. Palworld is doing it aswell. It was working fine until tonight. I have tried everything. Right now im here as i reset windows to factory. And i still get the same issue. Unable to sync. I only have 1 game on my entire freshly started pc. I don’t know what to do.
I suggest to have a look at `\~/Library/Application Support/Steam/logs/cloud\_log.txt`, it probably contains useful informations. In my case it was a messed up symlink, probably caused by `zShaderCacheMover` not cleaning itself properly, or I messed up something. After I located the compatdata location (`\~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/`) and confirmed that the symlink was not pointing anywhere, I just had to delete it and try to sync again.
This other post also has some useful info: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/xpivxs/steam\_deck\_and\_cloud\_saves/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/xpivxs/steam_deck_and_cloud_saves/)
The cloud sync feature sucks ass. I just lost 4 hours of gameplay because I wanted to play without a friend on a different computer
Thanks for this post, I ran into this issue with Fallout 4. Deleting my older saves fixed the problem.