When migrating to a new computer, it is possible to move your entire Vortex setup across with a few manual steps.
It's first important to understand the data that you will need to back up from the old PC and why it is important. The data Vortex uses to provide your modding experience is stored across three main locations.
Before migrating your setup, please be aware that this process is simplest when the following conditions are met:
C:\Mods\Skyrim
on the old PC, you plan to install it to C:\Mods\Skyrim
on the new one.Ensure you have the latest version of Vortex installed on Both PCs and keep the application closed while you move the files around.
The location of your appdata folder will vary based on your settings. By default the path will be C:\Users\{YourAccountName}\AppData\Vortex
, which can quickly be accessed by typing %APPDATA%\Vortex
into any file browser.
If you have enabled "Shared" mode under the "Multi-user mode" setting, the application data will be found at C:\ProgramData\Vortex
. The short code for this is %ProgramData%\Vortex
. You only need to copy this folder if you are using Shared mod.
Ensure you copy this entire folder, including any subdirectories and extract it to the same place on your new PC.
You should unlink your mods using the "Purge Mods" option in Vortex before attempting this.
Each game will have an independant staging folder, by default these are stored at %AppData%\Vortex\{GAMEID}\mods
. You can check the location of the staging folder for each game by heading to Settings -> Mods -> Mod Staging folder.
Ensure you collect all folders and files here and move them to the new PC.
This step is optional, but is required if you want to be able to re-install mods without having to download them again. Your download folder is global for all installed games and the path can be checked in Settings -> Download -> Downloads folder.
Some games may have additional files, such as saved games or config files, that exist outside the directories managed by Vortex. It is up to you to research which of these files you want to keep and back them up accordingly.
Once all the files and folder have been moved to the correct places, open Vortex on your new PC and it should look almost identical to how it was set up on the old PC.
The most common problems users encounter are explained below.
It's always a good idea to put the folders in the same place by default, then you can move them to new locations using the settings in the Vortex UI.
If you don't have the hard drive storage to put everything where it is on the old PC, place the folders in the new location. This will cause several warnings to appear when starting Vortex. Ensure you read each one carefully and correctly direct it to the new locations of your staging and download folders.