Locating, Backing Up, and Migrating Flash Game Save Files (.SOL)

In the era of Adobe Flash Player, game progress—such as high scores, unlocked characters, or custom levels—was stored in a proprietary binary container known as a Local Shared Object (LSO), saved with a .sol file extension.

Today, when playing those same games inside the modern Ruffle WebAssembly emulator, players often wonder how save persistence works: Where are current saves stored, how can you back them up before clearing browser data, and can old save files from years ago be loaded into modern browser emulators?

This guide explains how Ruffle handles legacy Flash SharedObjects, where to locate historical .sol files on old hard drives, and how to export and migrate your progress across devices.

1. How Save Storage Has Evolved

[Legacy Adobe Flash (Pre-2021)]
Game Save ──► Written directly to OS File System as a .SOL binary file
Path: %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\...

[Modern Ruffle WebAssembly Emulator]
Game Save ──► Serialized to Browser IndexedDB Virtual Storage
Origin: Stored securely per website origin inside client-side database

• Legacy Storage: The original Flash Player plugin wrote .sol files directly to a specific folder in your operating system’s user profile directory.
• Modern Ruffle Storage: Because WebAssembly runs inside the browser security sandbox and cannot write arbitrary files to your hard drive, Ruffle serializes Flash Local SharedObjects into the browser’s IndexedDB database under the origin domain of the game portal.

2. Exporting and Importing Saves in Ruffle

Modern builds of Ruffle include a native save management interface built directly into the context menu:

Exporting Save Data:

1. Open your Flash game running in Ruffle.
2. Right-click anywhere inside the game canvas.
3. Look for the Open save manager option (or Export save data depending on the player build).
4. Select Export save data to download your active progress as a .sol file to your computer.

Importing a Save File:

1. Load the game on your target device or browser.
2. Right-click the canvas and select Import save data (or use the save manager).
3. Select your .sol file from disk.
4. Refresh the game canvas to load the imported state into the active engine session.

3. Finding Historical Flash Saves on an Old Computer

If you have an older desktop or laptop drive that ran Adobe Flash before 2021, your historical save files may still exist in the default Flash Player directories:

On Windows:

1. Press Win + R to open the Run prompt.
2. Enter the following path and press Enter:

   %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\

3. Inside, you will find folders named after random alphanumeric strings, containing domain folders (such as armorgames.com or uploads.ungrounded.net). Each folder contains the individual .sol files named after the original game movies.

On macOS:

Open Finder and navigate to:

~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects/

Once located, you can back up these .sol files and import them directly into Ruffle on modern machines.

Summary

Flash game progress is stored in binary Local Shared Objects (.sol). In the modern web era, Ruffle preserves this architecture by storing LSO data within browser IndexedDB databases. Using Ruffle’s built-in save manager allows you to export .sol files for safe offline backups or migrate them across different computers.

Related Guides & Documentation

• Category Hub: Browse all guides in WebAssembly & Retro Emulation
• Related Guide: How to Convert Vintage Flash Animations (.SWF) to Video and HTML5 Canvas — A step-by-step guide to converting legacy Flash SWF files into high-definition video with Swivel, modern HTML5 Canvas in Adobe Animate, or WebAssembly playback.
• Related Guide: ActionScript 2 vs. ActionScript 3 in Ruffle: Understanding Game Compatibility — A technical comparison of AVM1 and AVM2 architectures in the Ruffle Flash emulator, explaining why older Flash titles run reliably while complex late-era titles require ongoing development.
• Related Guide: Fixing Vector Blurriness and High-DPI Scaling in the Ruffle Flash Emulator — A guide to understanding vector tessellation versus bitmap upscaling in Ruffle, and how to configure quality settings for sharp visuals on 1080p and 4K displays.