How to Save, Export, and Back Up Streamlabs Scenes

Streamlabs Desktop, formerly Streamlabs OBS, stores your scenes inside a scene collection. Edits to scenes and sources are saved automatically, so you never press a Save button. What you control is how you keep a backup copy, how you export it, and how you move it to another computer or to OBS Studio.

Before you start

A scene collection holds your scenes, each capture source, source positions, filters and widget sources. It does not hold output settings such as bitrate, encoding, frame rate or recording format. Those belong to the app settings, so write them down or take screenshots of the settings pages before you move to a new machine.

Saving happens locally on your computer. When you are signed in, Streamlabs Desktop can also sync scene collections to your Streamlabs account, but sync depends on your sign-in state and app version. Do not assume a cloud copy exists. Make a local backup as well.

• Update Streamlabs Desktop, and OBS Studio if you plan to transfer scenes.
• Note which collection is active. Its name appears in the scene collection selector above the Scenes list.
• Find the images, videos and fonts your scenes use. Media sources usually point to files on disk rather than storing a copy inside the collection.
• Close Streamlabs Desktop before you copy its data folder.

Step-by-step instructions

Create a restore point inside the app

Before you make large changes, open the scene collection selector and look for the option to manage collections. If your version can duplicate a collection, duplicate it and give the copy a date in its name. You can switch back to the copy if an edit goes wrong.

Export an overlay file

• 1. Open Settings in Streamlabs Desktop.
• 2. Find the section for scene collections or overlays. The label varies between versions.
• 3. Choose the option to export an overlay file.
• 4. Save it to a folder outside the app's data folder, such as an external drive, and include the date in the file name.

An overlay file is meant for re-importing into Streamlabs Desktop, from the same settings area. OBS Studio does not use this format. To move scenes to OBS Studio, use the method below.

Back up the scene collection files

• 1. Quit Streamlabs Desktop completely.
• 2. Open the app's data folder. On Windows it is typically slobs-client inside the Roaming application data folder. On macOS it is typically slobs-client inside Application Support in your user Library. If the folder is not there, search your system for slobs-client.
• 3. Copy the SceneCollections folder, which contains one JSON file per collection, to your backup location.
• 4. Copy the media files your scenes reference, and keep their folder structure.

Transfer Streamlabs scenes to OBS Studio

Recent versions of OBS Studio include a scene collection importer that can read Streamlabs Desktop collections. Work from a backup copy so the originals stay untouched.

• 1. In OBS Studio, open the Scene Collection menu and choose Import.
• 2. If the importer finds your Streamlabs collections automatically, select them. Otherwise, add the JSON file from your copied SceneCollections folder. The file names may be IDs, so open a file in a text editor to confirm the collection name.
• 3. Run the import, then switch to the new collection from the Scene Collection menu.

Streamlabs-specific widgets, themes and some filters may not carry over, or may arrive as plain browser sources. Treat the import as a starting point and expect to fix individual sources.

Import OBS Studio scenes into Streamlabs Desktop

Streamlabs Desktop offers to import from OBS Studio during first-time setup. Some versions also offer an OBS import option later, in scene collection management or in Settings. Before importing, back up the OBS side by choosing Scene Collection, then Export, in OBS Studio. Sources that depend on OBS plugins that Streamlabs Desktop does not support will be missing or broken after import.

Check the output

• Confirm that the exported or copied file exists in the backup location and is not zero bytes.
• Open a collection JSON file in a text editor and check that your scene names appear in it.
• After an import, click through every scene. Look for missing-file warnings, empty image or video sources, and black previews.
• Watch the audio mixer meters to confirm microphone and desktop audio sources respond.
• Make a short local test recording to confirm your output settings, since these are not part of the scene collection.

Treat exported files as private. Widget and browser sources can contain account-specific tokens, so do not post collection or overlay files publicly. If you rely on cloud sync, check Streamlabs' own documentation for what is stored and for how long.

Common problems and next steps

Scenes are missing after a reinstall or on a new computer: sign in with the same Streamlabs account and check the collection list. If nothing appears, close the app and restore your copied SceneCollections folder, or import your overlay file.

Images or videos are missing after a transfer: the sources still point to the old file locations. Either recreate the same folder structure on the new machine or re-select each file in the source properties.

OBS Studio does not offer a Streamlabs option in the importer: update OBS Studio, then add the collection JSON file manually instead of relying on automatic detection.

A display, game or camera capture source is black in the new app: capture sources are tied to specific hardware and windows. Open each source, select the device or window again, and make sure the camera is not in use by another program.