How To Transfer Steam Games?

No matter whether you have it on your Windows-powered system or a Linux-powered machine, Steam simply offers the best experience (including the best deals) for gamers with a huge collection of games available to purchase and play.

Considering that you utilize it as well – how do you manage big games on your storage drives?  Is there a way to transfer Steam games to another drive (or another PC) easily?

In this article, we will take a look at the options to be able to transfer games from Steam to another storage location or completely moving it to a new PC.

Two Easy Methods To Transfer Steam Games Without Re-Downloading

You don’t need to re-download the game if you want to transfer it to another storage location (or possibly share the files to another PC).

Move the game to another drive

If you simply want to change the storage location, it is quite easy to do so. Follow the steps below for a quick solution:

1. Launch ‘Steam‘ on your system and then right-click on the game you want to transfer.

2. Now, as per the screenshot below, click on ‘Properties‘.

3. In the properties, head to the “LOCAL” section and click on “MOVE INSTALL FOLDER“.

4. Finally, you just have to select the path of your storage location and hit “MOVE” to start the transfer.

This wasn’t tough, right? It is quite easy to transfer steam games from one storage location to another.

However, this may not be the ideal solution when you want to move multiple games at once (or if you plan to give the game to your friend using an external storage drive). For such type of cases, the second method should help.

Move Multiple Games To Another Drive in Windows 10 (or share it with a friend)

You do not need to backup the games and then transfer the files. You will end up wasting a lot of time that way. So, we have a quicker solution for you. Follow the steps below for quick steam game transfers.

1. Launch the File Explorer and navigate your way to the Steam folder. By default, it should be inside Program Files (x86) in the Windows installation drive.

However, it might be different if you have set a custom installation path for your Steam library.

Note: In case you do not know the location of your Steam library, go to the Steam settings from the menu (Steam->Settings) and then find the library path from the downloads option as instructed in the screenshot below.

2. After you’re in the Steam Library folder, head inside the ‘steamapps‘ folder and proceed to the ‘common‘ folder as shown in the image below.

3. Here, you will find all the games listed. Simply, copy-paste the games you want to transfer first.

4. Once you are done transferring the required game files, head back to the ‘steamapps‘ folder. You should observe a bunch of manifests (.acf files).

5. Depending on what game you want to transfer, simply search for the App ID of the game on SteamDB.info (as shown below) and copy the file with the ID that matches the game to your new Steam Library storage location inside the ‘steamapps‘ folder.

Wrapping Up

You do not need to utilize anything else in order to transfer steam games. Unless you wish to keep a backup of your game, you do not necessarily need to create a backup (because it is time-consuming.)

These two methods are completely safe and quick enough to transfer any steam game to a new storage path.

Are you aware of a better way to transfer Steam games? Feel free to share it in the comments below.

Ankush Das
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Steam (Valve)