steam How to Move a Steam Game to Another Drive Without Re-Downloading It

[vissha]

How to Move a Steam Game to Another Drive Without Re-Downloading It

 

Steam offers multiple library folders, and you can choose where you want to install games when you download them. There’s no obvious way to move a game to another drive after the fact, though–but it is possible, 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 and every single game inside it–in this case, we only want to move a few games.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Painlessly Move Your Steam Library to Another Folder or Hard Drive

 

Step One: Create a Second Steam Folder

 

First, you’ll need to make a Steam library folder on the second drive if you haven’t already done so. To do this in Steam, click Steam > Settings. Select the “Downloads” category and click the “Steam Library Folders” button.

 

Click “Add Library Folder”, select the drive you want to create the library folder on, and click “New Folder”. Give it whatever name you like, click “OK”, and then click “Select” to choose the folder you just created.

 

The folder you chose will appear in the Steam Library folders list. You can now close this window.

 

Open File Explorer or Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder you just created. There should be a “steamapps” folder inside the main folder. If there isn’t, right-click inside the Steam folderyou created, select New > Folder, and name it “steamapps” (without quotes).

 

Inside the steamapps folder, right-click, select New > Folder, and name it “common” (without quotes).

 

When you’re done, the folder structure should be:

[Your Steam Library Folder]\steamapps\common

 

Step Two: Copy the Game Files to the Second Library

 

You’ll now need to move a game’s files from the first Steam library to the secondary Steam library you just created.

Locate the installed game you want to move in your Steam library, right-click it, and select “Properties”. Click over to the “Local Files” tab and click “Browse Local Files”.

 

You’ll be taken to the game’s folder in your main Steam library folder. Click the “common” folder in the address bar to go up a folder.

 

Right-click the game’s folder and select “Copy”.

 

Go back to the Steam library you created earlier, right-click inside the “common” folder, and select “Paste”.

 

Windows will copy the files from your first Steam library to your second Steam library. Wait for the process to complete before continuing. Depending on how large the game is and how fast your drives are, this may take some time.

 

Step Three: “Uninstall” the Game

 

Next, you’ll need to uninstall the game from within Steam. Steam will delete the game’s files from their location in the original Steam library, but the files you copied to the second Steam library won’t be touched.

 

Warning: Be sure to wait for the file copying process to complete before you uninstall the game!

 

To uninstall the game, right-click it in Steam and select “Delete Local Content”. Click “Delete” again to delete the game’s files from your first library.

 

Step Four: “Reinstall” the Game

 

You’ll now need to reinstall the game as if you were re-downloading it–but don’t worry, Steam won’t re-download the game. Locate the game in your Steam library and click the “Install” button.

 

Select the secondary library location where you copied the game’s files earlier under “Choose location for install” and click “Next”.

 

Steam will check the library location and say it’s “discovering existing files” before downloading anything. This will take some time, as Steam is actually inspecting the files on your second drive to find they’re correct and not corrupted. If a few files are missing for whatever reason, Steam will just download those files. It won’t re-download the entire game.

 

You’re done. Steam now considers the game installed in the second library. To move other games, just repeat this process. You can skip the first step and copy more game folders to the “common” folder in the second Steam library you created.

 

Source

[musicking]

backup your game appmanifest files Steam\steamapps\appmanifest_XXXXX.acf (if later steam app reinstall or clean install)

use Directory Linker

https://dirlinker.codeplex.com/

 

[t33st33r]

On 13/9/2016 at 9:49 PM, musicking said:

backup your game appmanifest files Steam\steamapps\appmanifest_XXXXX.acf (if later steam app reinstall or clean install)

use Directory Linker

https://dirlinker.codeplex.com/

 

 

Command Line's internal command MKLINK is easy to use and gives you ptions to make another kinds of link too.
Try:

mklink /?