How to Change Where Steam Installs Your PC Games
28How to Change Where Steam Installs Your PC Games.
By default, Steam will download your games to whatever is the main drive on your PC. That is, whichever one Windows is installed on. In many cases that's not going to be a problem, but it will if you have a small SSD boot drive to complement a larger mass storage HDD, for example.
Steam offers multiple library folders, and you can choose where you want to install games when you download them. And, thanks to a recent update, you can easily move a game after you’ve downloaded it without re-downloading the entire thing.
This process can save you from downloading tens or even hundreds of gigabytes of game data all over again, just because you got a new SSD and want to move a few games. It’s different from moving an entire Steam library folder, which moves every single game inside it—the following process will let you move only a few games rather than the whole library.
If you’re a PC gamer there’s a good chance a large portion of your game collection is housed in Steam. And while Valve’s desktop game launcher/retail storefront/social network amalgamation is a great tool for organizing games, sometimes its defaults aren’t the best choice for everyone.
Take where your games are automatically installed. By default, Steam drops them into your C drive, but what if you’ve got a larger D partition, or an SSD you want to dedicate to games? No problem. Adding install locations is simple.
In this case, you need to tell Steam that you want things somewhere else. It's not immediately obvious how to do it, but it's not complicated, either.
This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops, and tablets running the macOS, Linux, Windows 10, Windows 11 operating systems (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) from all supported hardware manufactures, like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, Alienware, Razer, MSI, Huawei , Microsoft Surface, and Samsung, and macOS (MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacBook Mini) devices.