How to move all my STEAM games to another hard drive without redownloading them?

ichigo1000 · Oct 24, 2013

I am getting a new 1TB hard drive and I would like to know how do i move all my steam games and game data without reinstalling and downloading. Redownloading everything will take a very very long time because there is lots of games.

When i move the steam games on another hard drive, the next time i download a game it will automatically download on my new hard drive right?

USAFRet · Oct 24, 2013

Direct from Steam:
Moving a Steam Installation and Games

USAFRet · Oct 24, 2013

As for your second question:
You can designate the default location in the Steam client.

Hookster67 · Oct 24, 2013

There is an awesome piece of software called Steam Mover. I also have SSD for main startup and some games but all my Steam games reside on my 2TB hard drive. Self explanatory to use. Go here and follow link to download. Good ,Luck.

http://download.cnet.com/Steam-Mover/3000-2248_4-75764205.html

ichigo1000 · Oct 24, 2013

Hookster67 :

Am i allowed to keep some games on my old drive?

ichigo1000 · Oct 24, 2013

USAFRet :

If i move the whole folder to my new hard drive will steam automatically download my games to the new hard drive? Also, am i allowed to have some steam games on 2 hard drives at the same time?

USAFRet · Oct 24, 2013

ichigo1000 :

Go into Steam Settings - Steam Library Folders, and designate a new folder on the other drive. Now designate another folder on another drive. When you start the installation/download, you can select which one that particular game should go in.

Like this:

http://i.imgur.com/xYCcgV7.png

One of drives is a large HDD, one is a secondary SSD

ichigo1000 · Oct 24, 2013

USAFRet :

ichigo1000 :

Go into Steam Settings - Steam Library Folders, and designate a new folder on the other drive. Now designate another folder on another drive. When you start the installation/download, you can select which one that particular game should go in.

Like this:

http://i.imgur.com/xYCcgV7.png

One of drives is a large HDD, one is a secondary SSD

Okay thanks! But how do i choose which hard drive is the default location to download games? Like when you download a new game

USAFRet · Oct 24, 2013

ichigo1000 :

USAFRet :

Okay thanks! But how do i choose which hard drive is the default location to download games? Like when you download a new game

When you go to the install, there is a dropdown where you can select the target drive/folder. Or even make a new target on the fly.

ichigo1000 · Oct 24, 2013

USAFRet :

ichigo1000 :

When you go to the install, there is a dropdown where you can select the target drive/folder. Or even make a new target on the fly.

kay, after i select it, the drive will stay selected till i use the dropdown menu to switch it right?

USAFRet · Oct 24, 2013

ichigo1000 :

Game A is installed on Drive X. Game B is installed on Drive Y.
Steam knows the difference.

They do not change after installation.

ichigo1000 · Oct 24, 2013

USAFRet :

Yeah, what i am saying is:
Pretend i am installing a new game, i chose the new drive in the drop down menu.
The next time i download another game, will it be automatically setted to installing on the new drive? (Sometimes i forget, and dont switch the dropdown menu to the new drive)

USAFRet · Oct 24, 2013

ichigo1000 :

USAFRet :

Yeah, what i am saying is:
Pretend i am installing a new game, i chose the new drive in the drop down menu.
The next time i download another game, will it be automatically setted to installing on the new drive? (Sometimes i forget, and dont switch the dropdown menu to the new drive)

I believe it defaults to the first folder in the list if you have more than one.
In my above image, that would be "F:\Steam"

ichigo1000 · Oct 24, 2013

USAFRet :

ichigo1000 :

I believe it defaults to the first folder in the list if you have more than one.
In my above image, that would be "F:\Steam"

Alright then, i would probably just move the whole steam installation to the new drive since i always forget to switch the dropdown menu to my new drive.

Hookster67 · Oct 24, 2013

ichigo1000 :

Hookster67 :

Am i allowed to keep some games on my old drive?

Hookster67 · Oct 24, 2013

You can keep games on your old drive as well. It works real well and Steam does not control it the software does. It is up to you. It is kind of like a file manager for Steam games basically. Try it out. Worse case you can uninstall the software if you do not like. This software is for after you installed the games. The games are then installed to whatever drive you want to transfer them to. If you had multiple drives you could put them across other drives as well. It works really well.

AlEGator · Feb 13, 2014

I actually found a great way to get this done. Back up your old drive, or the directories you wish. AFTER you back up uninstall steam. Put in you new drive and restor files. There will be a file called steam.exe.old in your directory. Rename to steam.exe, execute that file it will run a small update, maybe 60mb. Then it will reinstall itself and wallah, all your games are there. Some may require an update, (for me it was 9 games 5gb). The backup I used was 4 months old. Everything is right for me now and running great!

Alien316 · May 2, 2015

USAFRet :

First off thanks a lot this post was very helpful. Only now when I tell it what folder I want it to go to on the other drive it tells me that it failed to create folder, this drive is read-only?

USAFRet · May 2, 2015

Alien316 :

USAFRet :

First off thanks a lot this post was very helpful. Only now when I tell it what folder I want it to go to on the other drive it tells me that it failed to create folder, this drive is read-only?

Are you currently downloading a Steam game? That may be the reason.
Or...you don't have permissions on that drive.

Alien316 · May 2, 2015

No this is a brand new computer and no games have been installed yet. I put steam on my 2tb HDD and I wanted to create a directory on my SSD for a select few games while the rest go on the 2tb.

USAFRet · May 2, 2015

Alien316 :

OK...create a new post for this issue, and relate exactly what you did and how it fails.

Alien316 · May 2, 2015

Ok I just figured out what it was.. Steam itself wasn't started in admin mode. Now it let me create the folder in the other drive.

IlilasLef · Aug 3, 2015

ichigo1000 :

Ok, I didn't see this answer anywhere online and I had the exact same dilemma as you. Assuming you have already established another library for Steam, i.e. D:/Steam/SteamApps/common/(Game Folder) basically mirroring the install files which are presumably at C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam blah blah.

Ok, take the game folder you want to move and cut it from the original directory, and paste it in the new one. Once it's finished moving, in the Steam window, select the game and click Delete Local Content. It will then try and delete what was previously there, i.e. nothing since you just moved it, and then it will give you the option to install once more.

Now click install, and then select the new install path, i.e. D:/Steam, and click next. Steam will then notice that all of those files are already there and it will just look through them and in about two minutes it'll decide it's all there and you're good to go, no special software or console commands or anything.

How to move all my STEAM games to another hard drive without redownloading them?

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