How Do You Transfer Steam?

[rodge.rives]

I will be building my first pc in a few days and was wondering, could I transfer steam and all my games from my old laptop to my new pc without  downloading them online?

[Leonard]

Yes you can, just go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam and copy the steam apps folder to a backup disk and when you install steam on your new PC just copy the steam apps folder back to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam on the new PC and BAM! you did it.

[pwn_intended]

@Leonard's response will work. Another option is to use the "Backup and Restore Games" feature in steam and you can back up individual games (or all of them) to any drive or CD/DVD or whatever else tickles your fancy. This is considered the "proper" way, but the other method works well too.

[rodge.rives]

2 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Yes you can, just go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam and copy the steam apps folder to a backup disk and when you install steam on your new PC just copy the steam apps folder back to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam on the new PC and BAM! you did it.

Does it matter that my steam library is on separate drives( C: and D on my laptop? ( I only I one drive in my laptop but shows up as two)

[HarryNyquist]

1 minute ago, pwn_intended said:

@Leonard's response will work. Another option is to use the "Backup and Restore Games" feature in steam and you can back up individual games (or all of them) to any drive or CD/DVD or whatever else tickles your fancy. This is considered the "proper" way, but the other method works well too.

I find that copying them over is way more reliable. 9/10 times I've tried the backup/restore feature in Steam it will hang restoring a large game. 

 

If you manually copy the files, make sure to also copy the associated appmanifest_<ID>.vdf files. When you go to "redownload" the games, it'll say "Discovering existing files for <game>" and it should be done much quicker.

[rodge.rives]

1 minute ago, HarryNyquist said:

If you manually copy the files, make sure to also copy the associated appmanifest_<ID>.vdf files. When you go to "redownload" the games, it'll say "Discovering existing files for <game>" and it should be done much quicker.

@HarryNyquist will those filse be in  C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam

[HarryNyquist]

Just now, rodge.rives said:

@HarryNyquist will those filse be in  C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam

Steam\steamapps

[Leonard]

2 minutes ago, rodge.rives said:

Does it matter that my steam library is on separate drives( C: and D on my laptop? ( I only I one drive in my laptop but shows up as two)

Actually, it is on the same drive but on a different partition and no it doesn't matter where you copy the steam apps folder from as long as you copy the steam apps folder and then copy it back in the same place that the steam destination directory is located.

[rodge.rives]

Quote

 

13 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Yes you can, just go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam and copy the steam apps folder to a backup disk and when you install steam on your new PC just copy the steam apps folder back to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam on the new PC and BAM! you did it.

Is there anything keeping me from just copying the whole steam folder instead  of just the apps folder?

[Leonard]

Just now, rodge.rives said:

Is there anything keeping me from just copying the whole steam folder instead  of just the apps folder?

There isn't but when you install steam on the new PC you will install all the files except the files(your games) in the steam apps folder, so copying them then to find out you don't need them is wasting time and disk capacity.