Installing games on steam via local files

IridescentCheese

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Hello so usually when you install a game on steam you end up downloading it, but the usual problem is the slow internet and data capping.

My friend and I play PUBG together, him having a fast internet download speed always gets his game up to date. So what I would usually do is copy his PUBG game files from steamapps to my external HDD then to my steamapps, I press install then steam just discovers the local files ignoring the downloading option then boom its ready to play.

I saw the advantage on this feature and asked another friend to download Witcher 3 for me since I have purchased it on steam. After downloading the whole game which is 50gb in size(I logged my steam account on his PC to download it of course) I moved it to my external HDD then to my steamapps folder in my PC and click install. The installation failed, saying that the cause is not enough storage space.

Unfortunately for my PC I only have one storage drive, a 120gb SSD with only 90gb extra space left. It turns out that in order for steam to install via local files you need to make sure that your storage space can breakeven with the game file size. PUBG worked just fine for my 90gb space because its only less than 20gb so there is more then enough space to install. But Witcher 3 on the other hand is 50gb in size and leaves 40gb of my 90gb storage space once pasted to steamapps. Like I said earlier you need to breakeven on the storage space, if the game you are installing via local files is 50gb then you need to have 50gb or more space left once pasted to steamapps. But of course that won't work for me since I only have a limited space.

I know just buying an extra storage drive will solve it but my current situation can't go for that option.
So is there any solution for this? Thank you in advance :)
 
Solution
If your external drive has enough space you can create a new folder and add it to your steam game directories and install it there.
Afterwards just copy the files to your normal steam dir where all the other games are and you are done.

(You can also do all this at a friends)
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3425971/local-disk-space-increasing-constantly.html?siteFrom=EPR-8807#xtor=EPR-8807 can help you to reclaim disk space.

The OP's response :
hey there thanks for the answers everyone. And this method as aquielisunari says worked forme. it was the media cache files which took up a lot of space. i freed around 30 GB. thanks a lot :)



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Do you have Hibernation enabled? Do you use it? DO you have to use it? Could you use sleep instead?

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15140/what-is-hiberfil....

That can save you Several GBs worth of space. It saved me between 7 and 10GB. Been a while since I've disabled that. How much could it save you?

Hibernation will grow every day and the user can see that very clearly if they are low on disk space.

Is system restore enabled? You can Click start/ type System Restore and then click on Create a Restore point. You can then see if system restore is on. If it is you can click on Configure and delete all restore points. That can return 5GB or more. Yesterday I was at a little over 7GB worth of SSD space being used for my C drive. Today I was at a little under 9GB. Our workloads are completely different. So too will our SR sizes be different. When you click OK to close that screen make sure you Create a restore point before exiting it completely.

System restore also grows daily.

Have you cleaned your junk files? https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download can help with that. It does a better job than Disk Cleanup. You can leave Wipe Free Space unchecked. You can also decide which temp. files are deleted. Want it to not erase your saved passwords? You can do that. Depending on the time it's been since your last cleaning this step can save return several more GBs to your C drive.

Junk files will also add up if not cleaned.

https://windirstat.net/ is a utility which gives a visual indication of disk usage. See those large chunks of data

They are using the most data on your PC. It shows you a file tree but you can also click on those blocks and right click on Explorer here and go directly to that file. The program can show you where you can possibly save the most space.

 

IridescentCheese

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1.) I have the hibernation files deactivated.
2.) I haven't tweaked my System restore though.
3.) I do have CCleaner(free version)
4.) I do have Winderstat

I actually had the same problem on my C: drive months ago and found the solution on the forum link you sent me. Thats why I have hibernation tweaked, CCleaner installed, and Winderstat installed.
I haven't tried the System Restore option but I doubt it will get me the free space I needed to breakeven with my steam local file installation issue, but I will try. Thanks for the response.
 
If your external drive has enough space you can create a new folder and add it to your steam game directories and install it there.
Afterwards just copy the files to your normal steam dir where all the other games are and you are done.

(You can also do all this at a friends)
 
Solution

IridescentCheese

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Sep 6, 2016
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You mean I should plug my external HDD to my PC then create a new steam library in my external HDD similar to having a steam folder on my internal drive? Then install my games in the external HDD then once installed copy the installed game to my SSD's steamapps folder and steam won't require any local file installation? If that works that will really be a great help especially for game that are 45gb and above.
 

IridescentCheese

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Found the solution, I just used steam's backup and restore feature. I downloaded some games from my friend's PC and used the feature to backup game files in my external HDD. I think that's what you meant.