gd-edit¶

A save game editor for Grim Dawn, driven from a command line rather than a window full of buttons. It reads your save, shows you what is in it, lets you change things, and writes it back.

This build supports the current game including the Fangs of Asterkarn expansion.

Back up your saves

gd-edit writes a .bak copy when it saves, but keep your own copy as well. Your saves live in Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save on Windows, and ~/Documents/My Games/Grim Dawn/save on macOS and Linux.

Download¶

Download the latest release

Each release has three files attached — -windows.zip, -macos.zip and -linux.zip. Take the one for your system.

Installing¶

Unzip the folder anywhere you like: your Desktop, Documents, an external drive. There is no installer and nothing is written outside that folder. To uninstall, delete the folder.

WindowsmacOSLinux

Run gd-edit.exe.

Windows may warn that the publisher is unrecognised. That is because the build is not code-signed, which costs money for a free tool. Choose More info → Run anyway if you are willing to.

Run gd-edit.command, or gd-edit.app if you prefer an icon.

macOS blocks the first launch, because the build is not signed by an identified developer. How you get past it depends on your version — see the first launch is blocked.

Run gd-edit.sh.

If it is not executable after unzipping:

chmod +x gd-edit.sh

Java¶

gd-edit needs Java 17 or newer. It is not included in the download, and you may already have it.

A free build is available from Adoptium. Any vendor's build works — Temurin, Zulu, Corretto, Oracle, or whatever your Linux package manager provides. Nothing here is tied to a particular vendor.

Which version

Temurin 21 is what gd-edit is tested against.

The newest release is not automatically the best choice. gd-edit uses some long-standing native libraries, and each new Java release tightens the rules around those. Java 17 and 21 are both known to work.

On the download page take the JDK, x64, .msi installer. A JRE is technically enough, but Adoptium does not publish one for every version, so the JDK is simpler.

Windows installer options worth turning on

The Temurin installer leaves some features switched off by default. Turn on both of these:

Set JAVA_HOME variable
Add to PATH

JAVA_HOME is the important one. gd-edit checks it first, so setting it means gd-edit finds the right Java even if an older one is already on your PATH — which is common on Windows, where Oracle's Java 8 shim is often still present from some other program.

You do not need the JavaSoft (Oracle) registry keys option. gd-edit does not read the registry.

You do not need to keep Java updated for gd-edit to keep working. If Java is missing or too old, the launcher says so — naming the version it found and where — rather than failing cryptically.

First run¶

gd-edit looks for your game and saves automatically. Steam and GOG installs in their usual places are found without help.

If it cannot find them, set the paths yourself:

gamedir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Grim Dawn"
savedir "C:\Users\You\Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save"

Quotes matter when a path contains spaces.

Then pick a character from the list, and you are in:

Please choose a character to load:
1) Mary (local save)
2) RedPriest (local save)

> 1

From there, the commands describe what you can do, and the questions page answers the things people usually ask first.

Support¶

Support is via the forum only, on either of the two gd-edit threads:

GD save file editor -- the editor itself
GD save file editor character viewer -- the character sheet and the other write commands

Only bug fixes will be reviewed. Feature requests will not be considered.

The repository does not accept issues, so the forum thread is the place to raise one.

It will be updated if a game patch or expansion breaks it. Nothing else is promised. If something goes wrong, restore a save backup — which is why the warning at the top of this page is there.

Credit¶

gd-edit was written by Odie. That project has not been updated since 2021; this build is a fork of it, kept running against the current game and added to since. The original work is Odie's.

Distributed under the Eclipse Public License, the same licence as the original.

Other tools¶

gd-edit is a command line editor. If that is not what you want:

GD Defiler: A save editor with a window rather than a prompt — characters, stats, items and stash. Windows only. Updated in July 2026 for the 1.3 save format, so it reads current saves.
GD Stash: A Java application for storing items outside your transfer stash, with browsing, filtering and a database of items. Also edits characters.
GD Item Assistant: Stores items beyond the transfer stash, with search and cloud backup. Useful if your problem is running out of stash space rather than wanting to edit.
Grim Dawn Item Database: Not an editor. Part of GrimTools, and the easiest way to look up an item's exact name before asking gd-edit for it.
GrimTools Build Calculator: Plan a build in a browser, then hand the link to make-char and gd-edit will build the character.