Although solid country drives have steadily increased in capacity, so too accept the size of game installs. Today's triple-A titles commonly occupy upwards of 20GB with many approaching or exceeding 60GB, particularly afterward accounting for downloadable content.

Ironically, it's oft these big releases that benefit the most from the improved load times of a speedy drive, which is likely to be filled faster than you'd await if it's on the smaller side of SSDs -- e.g. a 250GB model would be blimp with four GTA 5-sized titles.

Fortunately, Steam has made information technology easier to motility games from one location to some other, no longer requiring you to open up a Windows command prompt or download tertiary-political party tools, though we'll outline those methods, besides, given that they still work.

Bankroll upwardly your games...

This isn't mandatory but is nonetheless a worthwhile precaution. The nearly convenient fashion is simply copying your Steam or SteamApps folder (which is where your games are) to a backup directory via Windows Explorer. Still, the Steam client too provides an integrated fill-in and recovery procedure that will allow you select installed titles and shop them as backup files. The tool splits the game data into CSM/CSD files that are sized suitably for plumbing fixtures on CDs and DVDs, though you can also create one big save.

Getting there: Become to your Steam library > Right click on a game > Backup game files... > Select the installed games to backup and follow the prompts from in that location.

To restore these files as installed Steam games, head to Steam > Backup and restore games... > Restore a previous backup > point information technology to your backup files > go along with the prompts.

Moving a single game betwixt drives

  • Become to Steam > Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders
  • Make a new Steam library folder on the desired new bulldoze (yous tin correct click on ane of these folders to set it as your default installation path, although the next time you install a game, Steam will ask where you want information technology to go).
  • Movement an already installed game to the new drive:
    Correct click on the game in your Steam library > Properties > Local Files tab > Movement install folder... > Cull the directory > Motion folder

I want to move a game dorsum off my SSD

The easiest way would be repeating the concluding step to a higher place by using Steam'south integrated characteristic for moving installation folders, though this method works, too:

  • Using Windows Explorer, move the game folder from your SSD back to the original steamapps\common directory or another library binder that Steam recognizes.
  • From Steam, right click on the game in your library and delete its local contents, which shouldn't actually delete anything because you lot merely moved all the game files.
  • Install the game again simply point the installer to wherever you moved the files in footstep one, which should prompt Steam to verify the information and non download anything.

Moving your entire Steam install

  • Shut Steam and caput to your Steam folder or library via Windows (probably C:\Program Files\Steam (x86)).
  • Copy and paste your Steam binder to the new location (rename the old binder and go out it in the original directory every bit a backup -- or delete it if desired).
  • You can run Steam.exe from the new location or download and run the Steam installer and point information technology to your new location (this can help make clean up shortcuts, etc).

Something isn't right with my Steam install!

  • Copy and paste your SteamApps folder to a backup location
  • Uninstall Steam
  • Reinstall Steam and copy your SteamApps folder back into the Steam installation directory

If a game has go corrupt, you can also have Steam automatically seek and swap damaged files by verifying the integrity of your local information:

  • Correct click on the broken game in your Steam library > Backdrop > Local Files > Verify integrity of game files...

If information technology'due south been a while since yous've washed this, note that it doesn't completely freeze the Steam client anymore and then you tin go on chatting etc.

The old way (no longer needed): Using mklink

Around the fourth dimension SSDs were taking off (over a decade agone!), Steam didn't provide a congenital-in method for moving games between drives -- this feature was only added in 2022. Instead, gamers relied on the Windows command mklink, which links one directory to another so that when software interacts with location A, it'due south redirected to location B. In other words, Steam will recollect the game is in its original directory, but it will instead run from the new bulldoze.

This approach still works simply is considered obsolete because of the features at present congenital into Steam:

  • Create the binder where yous'd like your game to exist (case: D:\Games\Steam)
  • Head to SteamApps (C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common) and cut/paste the game yous'd similar to move to the new drive (you don't want to go out a copy of the game in your old directory)
  • When the file transfer finishes, open the Windows control prompt and enter mklink /d "LINK" "TARGET" -- (example: mklink /d "d:\games\steam\steamapps\common\fullmojorampage" "eastward:\games\steam\steamapps\mutual\fullmojorampage")

Undoing that link is as elementary as deleting the link in C:\Steam\steamapps\mutual.
Tip: Y'all should exist able to come across the link you made by entering the dir command.

Other older tools for moving/backing up games

Download Steam Mover -- Earlier Valve's client could handle it, this was the go-to utility for moving Steam games to a new drive. Information technology offers an easy interface to relocate your games and create a link in Windows (like the transmission mklink approach outlined above). Version 0.1 of Steam Mover was released in Apr 2022 and although it's never received an update, it has accumulated hundreds of thousands of downloads in that time and it'south rare to find a complaint.

Download SteamTool Library Managing director -- Functionally identical to Steam Mover -- both by interface design and in methodology, relying on NTFS junctions to create a link between the new and old locations (note that this besides ways it just works on NTFS partitions).

Download Gamesave Manager -- GSM can automatically detect the save data for 4,764 games and makes information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to backup, restore and transfer game saves. Nevertheless, the utility likewise provides other features including the ability to movement Steam games (it too uses symbolic links or NTFS junctions).