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File paths in Godot projects

This page explains how file paths work inside Godot projects. You will learn how to access paths in your projects using the res:// and user:// notations, and where Godot stores project and editor files on your and your users' systems.

Path separators

To make supporting multiple platforms easier, Godot uses UNIX-style path separators (forward slash /). These work on all platforms, including Windows.

Instead of writing paths like C:\Projects\Game, in Godot, you should write C:/Projects/Game.

Windows-style path separators (backward slash \) are also supported in some path-related methods, but they need to be doubled (\\), as \ is normally used as an escape for characters with a special meaning.

This makes it possible to work with paths returned by other Windows applications. We still recommend using only forward slashes in your own code to guarantee that everything will work as intended.

Accessing files in the project folder (res://)

Godot considers that a project exists in any folder that contains a project.godot text file, even if the file is empty. The folder that contains this file is your project's root folder.

You can access any file relative to it by writing paths starting with res://, which stands for resources. For example, you can access an image file character.png located in the project's root folder in code with the following path: res://character.png.

Accessing persistent user data (user://)

To store persistent data files, like the player's save or settings, you want to use user:// instead of res:// as your path's prefix. This is because when the game is running, the project's file system will likely be read-only.

The user:// prefix points to a different directory on the user's device. Unlike res://, the directory pointed at by user:// is created automatically and guaranteed to be writable to, even in an exported project.

The location of the user:// folder depends on what is configured in the Project Settings:

  • By default, the user:// folder is created within Godot's editor data path in the app_userdata/[project_name] folder. This is the default so that prototypes and test projects stay self-contained within Godot's data folder.

  • If application/config/use_custom_user_dir is enabled in the Project Settings, the user:// folder is created next to Godot's editor data path, i.e. in the standard location for applications data.

    • By default, the folder name will be inferred from the project name, but it can be further customized with application/config/custom_user_dir_name. This path can contain path separators, so you can use it e.g. to group projects of a given studio with a Studio Name/Game Name structure.

On desktop platforms, the actual directory paths for user:// are:

Type

Location

Default
Windows: %APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\[project_name]
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Godot/app_userdata/[project_name]
Linux: ~/.local/share/godot/app_userdata/[project_name]

Custom dir
Windows: %APPDATA%\[project_name]
macOS: