IDGīefore you start, Steam Guard protection will need to be enabled for all accounts for which you want to enable family sharing. Steam family sharing is a digital reimagining of a central home gaming console, letting your family and friends play your Steam games when you’re not. This tip bridges the gap between our initial library management tips and the forthcoming barrage of random helpful extras. You’ll need to use Valve’s kind-of wonky Steam mobile app to verify your logins when you sign into the service on a new PC, but it’s worth the hassle-and using the authenticator function itself is painless. The service urges you to set up two-factor authentication via its Steam Guard tool, but if you’re the type of person (like me) who mindlessly closes Steam’s starting pop-ups, head to Settings > Account > Manage Steam Guard Account Security and set Steam Guard up. If you run into trouble, check out Steam’s backup FAQ. Note that the executable should auto-run if you’ve backed your games up to a CD or DVD. Simply log into your Steam account, then open the backup folder and run the steambackup.exe file (which you can grab here if you’ve lost it). The process is straightforward from there. A dialog box will pop up with a list of all your installed games, allowing you to select which titles you’d like to backup. Head into your library, right-click on any installed game, and select Backup Game Files. Guess what? Steam can handle your game backups, too. Backing up your games themselves protects against life’s “Oh crap!” moments, ensuring that you don’t risk corruption or angering your Internet provider by re-downloading your entire library if your hard drive gives up the ghost. Sure, the Steam Cloud keeps your save games nice and secure on Valve’s servers, but it only backs up your save games-and only on titles that support the feature. You can find a ton of custom grid images on the Steam Banners website or Deviant Art, as well. The fine folks in r/steamgrid on Reddit will whip up custom images for games if you’d like. If you want to add a custom image for the game in your Library’s grid view, just right-click it and select Set Custom Image, then go from there. Now open the Steam client and head to Games > Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library. Steam still won’t keep the rogue title up to date or save your game to Steam Cloud, but adding non-Steam games to your library lets your friends see when you’re playing the game, and unlocks the Steam overlay feature ( Shift + Tab), including full screenshot and in-game chat functionality. Fortunately, Valve lets you add non-Steam games to the Steam client.

Optimize your Steam library Add non-Steam games to your libraryįrom DRM-free indie titles to EA games sold exclusively through Origin, not every PC game graces Steam’s digital shelves-which can be a problem if you game and socialize exclusively through Valve’s service.

Steam game install location