I have deep respect for The Long Dark having perma death built in but some times reality is too much for people to deal with. In that case i wrote this guide because everybody hates losing progress.

1. In windows open run by pressing win+r and paste in %localappdata% (For macOS look in /Users/<your username here>/.local/share/Hinterland/TheLongDark)
2. Go to the folder called Hinderland and then into the folder "TheLongDark".
3. now create a new folder by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N and name it "backup" do not go into that folder yet.
4.Now ctrl+left mouse button these files to select them "autosave", "save001" and "user001" and press ctrl+c to copy them.
5. Go into your backup folder now and press ctrl+v to paste them.
6. Go outside of the backup folder and back into the "TheLongDark" Go outside of that folder and back into the folder "Hinderland" and click and drag the "TheLongDark" folder to your favorites menu below quick access on your left sidebar to be able to easily navigate here in the future.

Now this is how you back up your saves. whenever you want to save click the favorited folder after opening explorer and rebackup your files using the process outlined above replacing all files.

If you die go to the shortcut folder and delete everything but the backup folder. Exit the game completely and copy the files from the backup folder to the TheLongDark folder. Relaunch and your back at your save.