How to schedule restarts and backups for your Valheim server

A new Valheim server already has a Daily restart schedule and, if your plan has backup space, a nightly Automatic backup. Both are on Quick Tasks. With PlayNHost Tools on and players online, the Daily restart warns them in game 5 minutes and 1 minute before, saves the world, then restarts. You can switch schedules off, delete them, make them wait for an empty server, or build your own.

See your schedules

1. Open your server in the panel and click Quick Tasks in the left menu.
2. Scroll to Schedules.

The Daily restart

The Daily restart restarts the server early every morning, while it is running, so it picks up the latest Valheim update. Updates install when the server starts. Each server gets its own minute, between 06:30 and 06:59 Central European time. It only runs while the server is running, so a server you left stopped stays stopped.

What happens when it runs:

• Players online and PlayNHost Tools on: players see The server restarts in 5 minutes. and, four minutes later, The server restarts in 1 minute. in the middle of their screen. The world is saved, then the server restarts.
• Nobody online, or the tools off: the server restarts at once. Valheim saves the world as it stops.
• Run now on the schedule restarts at once, without the warning.

If your server has no Daily restart, find it in Schedules under Ready-made for Valheim and click Add.

Wait for an empty server

1. Click the Daily restart schedule to open its steps.
2. Switch on Skip while players are online.
3. Under When players are online, choose Skip that run, or Wait up to a time for the server to empty, from 15 minutes to 12 hours.

With a wait, the panel looks again every 5 minutes, runs as soon as the game reports nobody on, and runs anyway when the wait is over. See How to restart your Valheim server only when nobody is online.

Change its time

The time of a schedule on Quick Tasks cannot be changed once it exists, even though the schedule's description mentions it. Edit schedule… in its menu only opens the schedule. To restart at another time, make your own restart schedule and switch the daily one off:

1. Under All tasks, open the menu of Send Restart and choose Schedule….
2. Name it and click Next step. Choose Repeats, Every day and the time of day. The window reads back what you picked and shows the time where you are.
3. Click Schedule.
4. Switch Daily restart off with the switch on its row, or delete it.

A restart schedule you make yourself warns players in the same way when it runs with players online and the tools on.

Switch it off or delete it

Use the switch on the schedule card to pause it, or open its menu and choose Delete schedule. If you switch the daily restart off, the server only updates when you restart it yourself. See How to update your Valheim server and hold a version.

The Automatic backup

If your plan has backup space, an Automatic backup schedule runs every night. Its time can be changed on Backups, under Scheduled backups, with Edit in its menu. When your backup space is full, the oldest unlocked backup is removed. Lock the ones you want to keep: How to create, download and restore backups.

With PlayNHost Tools on, every backup of a running server is preceded by a save: How to back up and restore your Valheim world.

A backup at another time

1. On the Quick Tasks page, open the menu of the Backup Server task and choose Schedule….
2. Name it, click Next step, choose Repeats, Every day and a time.
3. Click Schedule.

Every backup uses a slot. See How to schedule tasks and automatic backups.

Related

How to delete a Valheim world or start fresh covers the Fresh world schedule.