How to Move a Steam Game to Another Drive

In recent years, games have become much larger and take up a significant portion of your storage drive. As a result, Steam has decided to provide its users with the option of moving selected games to a different drive. This way, there’s no need to re-download a huge number of gigabytes to transfer a few game files to another location. However, many gamers may not be familiar with this function. That’s why we’ve come up with a simple guide that shows you how to move your steam games to another drive.

Since Steam allows several library folders, you can decide where your games are installed after downloading them. Additionally, the company now allows its users to move those games once the download completes. Until recently, this process was very complicated, but the story is quite different now.

How to Move a Steam Game to Another Drive/Partition Using Steam

Moving a steam game to another internal or external drive is a simple process, but the time it takes to transfer the game files depends on the drive’s speed and the game’s size. This process creates a new folder in the partition or storage drive that you select.

Note: When using an external drive on several computers, the OS should be the same on each device since every OS has different Steam coding, plugins, and data to function. If you plug the drive into Ubuntu, it will overwrite Windows files to make it work in Linux. The same goes for the other way around.

Here’s how to move Steam games to another driver.

1. First, you need to make a library folder for the game on your second drive or partition. To do so, click on the Steam tab and access the Settings.
   
2. Choose Downloads, then go to STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS.
   
3. Click the ⊕ icon at the top next to the other listed drives.
4. Click the dropdown list. Choose a drive to add a library to (uses the root) or select Let me choose another location to specify a drive and folder.
5. Now, click on Add to open the classic Steam Library location popup window.
6. Select the desired drive and folder (if desired), then click the New Folder option.
7. Name the folder whatever you like and press OK.
8. Click the Select button to choose the folder you created, which should already be highlighted. The folder now appears in Steam’s list of library folders, so close the window.
   
9. Right-click your game in the library and choose Properties.
   
10. Select LOCAL FILES on the left, followed by Move install folder… on the right.
    
11. Pick the library where you want the game to get stored (your new drive/partition folder) and click on MOVE FOLDER.
    
12. The game now resides in the newly designated location. If you want to transfer other games, just repeat the process. Also, when installing future games, Steam will let you choose where you want to install them.

How to Move Multiple Steam Games at Once to Another Drive

If you want to move all your Steam games or batch-move some of them to a different drive, use the following steps:

1. Click on the Steam tab and select Settings.
   
2. Choose Downloads, then go to STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS.
   
3. Click the ⊕ icon at the top next to the other listed drives.
4. Click the dropdown list. Choose a drive to add a library to or select Let me choose another location to specify a drive and folder.
5. Now, click on Add to open the classic Steam Library location popup window.
6. Select the desired drive and folder (if desired), then click the New Folder option.
7. Name the folder whatever you like and press OK.
8. Click the Select button to choose the folder you created, which should already be highlighted. The folder now appears in Steam’s list of library folders, so close the window.
   
9. Return to the Steam Storage Manager window and tick the boxes next to each game you want to be transferred. Click on each drive at the top to view all available games to select.
10. Click on Move at the bottom, then choose your drive from the list to move the selected games.
11. Your chosen group of games should now display in the new drive location.

How to Move All Steam Games using Windows File Explorer

1. Exit your Steam app if it’s running. Closing doesn’t exit Steam, so click on Steam -> Exit. from the top navigational menu.
2. Confirm the app is completely closed by checking the Windows System Tray.
3. Go to Steam’s folder using File Explorer.
   
4. Locate Steam’s game installation folder, which is Steam -> steamapps.
   
5. Copy the steamapps folder and paste it into your new drive. You can paste it into any folder you like.
6. Launch Steam and click on Steam -> Settings.
7. Select Downloads, then choose STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS.
8. Click the ⊕ icon at the top next to the other listed drives.
9. Click the dropdown list and choose Let me choose another location to specify your new drive and folder.
10. Now, click on Add to open the classic Steam Library location popup window.
11. Select the desired drive and folder (steamapps), then click Select.
12. The folder now appears in Steam’s list of library folders, so close the window.
13. Go to LIBRARY and verify that the games appear in the new location.

How to Change Your Steam Library Location

You can also change the location of your Steam library:

1. Open Steam and go to Steam -> Settings.
   
2. Choose Downloads on the left side.
   
3. Select STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS on the right side.
   
4. Click the ⊕ icon at the top next to the other listed drives.
5. Click the dropdown list and choose a drive to add your new game location.
6. You’ll now have multiple locations where you can save your games.
7. To designate a drive as the default library location for your games, return to Storage Manager, select a drive at the top, click on the horizontal ellipsis (three horizontal dots) on the right-click, and choose the Make Default.
   

Steam Game Location FAQs

Why Do You Move Steam Games to Another Drive?

Users usually decide to move their steam games to a different drive for two reasons. The first reason is that the drive with installed steam games has no more free space.

By default, your steam games will be installed into the C drive, but your programs and games can easily take up all of its space. Over time, your partition bar will turn red, or the drive will be filled to the brim. To prevent this scenario, Steam users choose to move their steam games to a partition with more free space.

The other reason is that gamers want to transfer their games to a solid-state drive (SSD) to lower load times. This is because SSDs come with much higher transfer speeds than hard-disk drives (HDDs). As a result, games moved to an SSD will load much faster.

How Do I Move My Existing Steam Installation?

This is how you can move your existing steam installation to a different hard drive:

• Log out of your Steam account and close the app.

• Go to the folder that contains your Steam installation. It should be in your Program Files on the C drive.

• Delete the folders and files there but keep the Steam.exe File and SteamApps Userdata folders.

• Cut the Steam folder and paste it to a different location. For instance, you can place it somewhere on your D drive. As you download your future games, they will be saved in your new folder.

• Open Steam, enter your login information, and wait for the program to finish the updates. After that, you’ll need to verify your files’ integrity.

• To do this, restart your PC and open Steam.

• Choose Manage, followed by Properties.

• Press Local Files and hit Verify integrity of game files…

How Do You Move Save Files From Steam?

If you’re moving a game to a different location, a good idea is to transfer the saved files as well.

• Find the game’s folder by right-clicking on the title in Steam’s library.

• Choose Properties and press Local Files.

• Click Browse Local Files to arrive at the location of the game’s files. Open it.

• Copy the files from the storage folder and paste them to a location on a different drive.

• Delete the contents of your previous storage folder.

• Launch the game from the new drive, and the saved files should load your current progress.

How Can I Move My Entire Steam Folder Into Another Drive?

Moving your entire steam folder works the same way as moving the Steam installation:

• Log out of your account and exit the application.

• Browse Steam’s current installation folder in the Program Files.

• Delete all the files and folders except for the Userdata and SteamApps folders and the Steam.exe file.

• Cut Steam’s folder and paste it to the new location.

• Open the client and log into your account. Wait for the updates to finish and verify the integrity of your files.

Boost Your Gaming Experience

Moving steam games to a different drive can be done in some quick and simple steps. Most of them boil down to creating an additional library and moving your games to the new location. So, whether you need to free up some space or you’d like to run games on faster settings, now you know how to do both.

Have you tried moving a Steam game to another drive? Did you encounter any difficulties along the way? Tell us in the comments section below.