[SOLVED] Best way to switch Steam games between pc's?

[JunkSniperJoe]

I'm planning on moving my Steam games over from one pc to another. Based on what I've seen online, I have 3 options:

1.) Re-download games. Problem is that re-downloading games will take a while.

2.) Use Steam's backup tool as seen here. I'm unsure if it's safe do this on an external hard drive though.

3.) Manually backup games as seen here.

Also, all these methods require me to back up my save files separately and put them in the right folders after reinstalling the games. That or restore saves from Steam Cloud for games that support it.

Anyway, my question is: Am I missing anything, or are there better ways to do this?

 

[Lutfij]

You could try one thing, migrate the game library to your storage of choice, then on the new system, after the OS is installed, plug in the drive that has your game library, install Steam and redirect the launcher to see the game library drive. Ofc, this only means that you backup any and/or all content in case anything goes sideways.

This is a concise way of putting it;
https://gaming.stackexchange.com/qu...eam-to-realize-i-have-games-already-installed

 

[hotaru.hino]

You can transfer the Steam library over to the new PC as is and in Steam's Settings -> Downloads, have it "create" a new library by pointing it to where you put the Steam library on the new PC. If all goes well, Steam will detect the games. You may have to run through the first-launch process again to install any dependencies but that's about it.

 

[JunkSniperJoe]

Thanks guys. I found a tutorial that looks pretty simple to set up. If that fails, I'll try out the above methods.

 

[USAFRet]

Copy the SteamApps folder to the other drive.

In the second PC, just tell the Steam client where these are.

Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

 

[JunkSniperJoe]

Copy the SteamApps folder to the other drive.

In the second PC, just tell the Steam client where these are.

Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

So let me see if I understand this. On the first pc, I copy SteamApps to my external hard drive. I then copy the files from the external hard drive to the new pc. Then in the Steam client, I tell it what folder I dumped my games in. That sound about right?

 

[USAFRet]

So let me see if I understand this. On the first pc, I copy SteamApps to my external hard drive. I then copy the files from the external hard drive to the new pc. Then in the Steam client, I tell it what folder I dumped my games in. That sound about right?

Yep.