Saves folder. Akron stores them in Saves/AkronBackups, then excludes that folder from later snapshots so each archive contains save data and no older backup ZIPs.
A backup holds your save files. It leaves out the folders Akron itself runs out of, and a restore leaves those folders exactly where they are:
The StartPos folder is the one worth knowing about, because it used to be included: at hundreds of megabytes per backup the total-size limit then deleted the older backups you wanted to keep. Restoring a backup never removes a StartPos slot - and never rewinds one either. A slot you have re-set since the backup was taken still holds what you set last.
Everything else in your Saves folder is backed up and restored, including
Saves/AkronLogs and the performance recorder’s Saves/.tmp-perf. Akron closes both of those itself before a restore touches anything.
Use it before risky mod changes, save-file edits, testing sessions, or any run where losing the current profile would be expensive. Backups can be created manually or triggered on launch, close, save/settings writes, chapter entry, and timed intervals.
Restore is intentionally conservative. Akron verifies the selected ZIP, creates a pre-restore backup of the current save files, unpacks the selected backup, puts it in place, reloads the save file you have open so Celeste does not keep using stale save data, and returns to the main menu. If you had no save file open, which is the case at the main menu, there is nothing to reload and Akron just rebuilds the menu so the file list shows the restored files. That safety backup stays in the browser like any other backup, so you can recover the state you had immediately before the restore.
Restore stops before it changes anything if either backup could not read every file, and names what it missed. That covers the pre-restore backup it takes for you, and the backup you picked: a backup records the files it could not read inside the archive, and putting one of those over your save files would move the missing ones aside and have nothing to put back. The browser says so next to any backup this applies to, so you can pick a different one. It also closes the Akron log and stops any performance recording, because both write into the Saves folder it is about to replace.
A restore that fails leaves your save files exactly as they were. It unpacks the backup into Saves/AkronRestore first, so a bad ZIP or a full disk is found before anything is touched. Only then does it move your current files aside and the unpacked ones into place, and if any of that will not go through, everything it has already moved goes back and the restore stops with a message saying so. Your old files are discarded last, after the restore has already succeeded.
Trigger controls
Option menus
Rows with a triangle expose the controls listed below.Backup metadata
Every ZIP includes_akron-backup.json with numeric schema value 2. This file records why the backup was created, when it was created, the Celeste and Akron versions, the active save slot and profile name, the current area and room when available, the enabled Everest module list, the folders the backup deliberately leaves out under excludedFolders, and any file the backup could not read. Metadata makes the restore browser easier to inspect and helps diagnose backups made around mod changes.
A file that cannot be read is left out of the ZIP and named in skippedFiles with the reason, and the backup finishes with the rest of the folder. The result line names the missing files too. A backup that lists nothing under skippedFiles holds everything in your Saves folder apart from the folders named under excludedFolders.
Akron writes _akron-backup.json into the archive last, so a ZIP without one is either a backup that was interrupted part way through or a ZIP that was never one of Akron’s. Akron also refuses metadata that is malformed, uses a schema other than 2, or does not contain a skippedFiles array. None of those archives can be restored: Akron cannot prove what they hold, and restoring one would take away every save file it does not happen to carry. They remain ordinary ZIPs you can open and take files out of by hand. Retention can still prune an older Akron archive whose numeric schema is no longer restorable, but it leaves ZIPs without parsed Akron metadata alone.
Retention
Retention runs only after a successful backup. A failed new ZIP is deleted and does not cause older archives to be cleaned up. Akron can clean up by backup count, age, and total backup folder size. The newest protected backups are kept even when they exceed those limits, and pinned backups are never deleted by automatic retention.
Pin important backups from the restore browser when you want to keep them outside the normal cleanup rules.