How browser games save your progress (and why it sometimes disappears)

The save lives in your browser, not on a server

A web page can store small amounts of data on your device using two browser features: localStorage, a simple key-value store, and IndexedDB, a larger structured database. Both are private to the website that wrote them, both survive closing the tab and restarting the computer, and both need no account. This is how nearly every free browser game saves.

The consequence is easy to state and easy to forget: the save is a file on this device, in this browser, belonging to the game's domain. There is no copy anywhere else unless the game offers an account system, and most do not.

Why the save belongs to the game's domain, not ours

When you play a game here it runs inside a frame from its distributor's domain. Browser storage is scoped to the origin that wrote it, so the game's save is stored under the distributor's domain rather than under neonpandagame.com. Two things follow. First, we cannot see, back up or restore your saves; they are not ours. Second, the same game embedded on a different website usually shares the save, because it is the same frame from the same domain, while the same game downloaded as an app does not.

Browsers are gradually tightening how third-party frames can use storage, and some already partition it per top-level site. If a game you had progress in on another site starts fresh here, that partitioning is the likely reason, not a bug in the game.

The three things that erase a save

Saves in browser storage vanish for exactly the reasons you would expect once you know where they are:

1. Clearing site data or cookies. The browser's "clear browsing data" dialog, with cookies and site data ticked, deletes localStorage and IndexedDB along with the cookies. Clearing history alone does not. Some privacy extensions and "cleaner" utilities do this automatically on exit.
2. Private or incognito windows. Storage written in a private window is discarded when the last private window closes. A game played in incognito starts from zero every time by design.
3. Switching browser or device. Chrome's storage and Safari's storage are separate, as are your laptop's and your phone's. Progress made in one does not exist in the other. Signing into the browser syncs bookmarks and passwords but not site storage.

How to keep a save

The practical habits are short:

• Play a game in the same browser on the same device if you care about its progress.
• When clearing browsing data, untick cookies and site data, or use the per-site option to clear only the sites you mean.
• Finish a level or reach a checkpoint before closing the tab. Games save at moments they choose, usually level completion, and a tab closed mid-level may lose that level.
• Do not rely on a game keeping a long-term record. Treat browser saves as convenient, not permanent.

Games that offer an account

A minority of browser games, mostly online multiplayer titles and some card game collections, offer an optional login that copies your progress to their servers. That is the only way a save follows you between devices. If a game on this site has one, the review's questions section says so. We do not recommend creating accounts on games that do not need them; a login you never use is one more password to look after.

Why we mention saves in every review

Save behaviour is one of the things checked before a game is listed, because it changes how a game should be played. A puzzle collection with hundreds of levels is a different proposition if your place in it can disappear. The reviews say what a game remembers, and the parent's guide covers what that stored data does and does not contain. For the mechanics of what a game frame is allowed to store in the first place, see are browser games safe.