How to find out APPID for non-steam game?

[M!GO]

Hello, everyone,

I've been trying to find the AppIPs for non-steam games for some time now.
Under Windows you only have to create a shortcut on your desktop and then you can read the AppID.

But I am using Linux (Mint/Lubuntu) at the time and there an error is displayed when trying to create a shortcut.


Hence my question:
How can I find out the AppID of a non-Steam game WITHOUT creating a shortcut?

Specifically:
I'm trying to run the program Kodi. This was added to the library and creating a shortcut is not possible. I would like to run the program as autostart with Steam running in the background.

Its easy to do with steam://rungameid/{YourGameId}
All I need to know now is what the ID of Kodi is if I can't create a shortcut.


Can anyone help me please?

[Cat on Linux]

APP ID for any given non-steam game can be obtained by right clicking the game in Steam, and hitting "Create Desktop Shortcut". The APPID will be in the target field in the shortcut

[Zyro]

Originally posted by Cat on Linux:

APP ID for any given non-steam game can be obtained by right clicking the game in Steam, and hitting "Create Desktop Shortcut". The APPID will be in the target field in the shortcut

He wrote that this didn't work for him.

@M!GO, AFAIK shortcut should work nowadays. Which message are you getting?

[Cat on Linux]

Originally posted by Zyro:

Originally posted by Cat on Linux:

APP ID for any given non-steam game can be obtained by right clicking the game in Steam, and hitting "Create Desktop Shortcut". The APPID will be in the target field in the shortcut

He wrote that this didn't work for him.

@M!GO, AFAIK shortcut should work nowadays. Which message are you getting?

right, but if they have not specified if they're getting error before or after window where they can read settings.
No, shortcut does not work for me on beta steam app too, CTDs right after asking to create one (it worked before tho, must be some kind of regression).

[M!GO]

thank you for the answers,

when I try to create a shortcut, I get the message that one already exists. I think this bug is known, at least there are some discussions about it.
- https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/5590


The question that comes to my mind is: since an APPID exists when creating a shortcut, this ID should already exist for every non-steam game / app and should be detectable somewhere.

The only question is where and how to find out.

Or.... Which Linux Distro works with creating desktop shortcuts? I could also simply change the OS :)

[Zyro]

Originally posted by M!GO:

The question that comes to my mind is: since an APPID exists when creating a shortcut, this ID should already exist for every non-steam game / app and should be detectable somewhere.

I actually wanted to write that there are no AppIDs for non-Steam applications, did a quick google... to find out there are. They can't have appIDs for every program, so my guess is they're either creating them locally when you'Re adding the application to Steam, or it's kind of a hash.

I got a question, though: Why aren't you starting Steam and Kodi seperately?

[M!GO]

I think it's my handicraft/play instinct.

I use the computer as HTPC and use Kodi more like Steam. However, I would like to be able to use Kodi with the IR remote and the Joypad and change it with just one push of a button on the steam surface.

You can also download a free little game and exchange the executable file with the one from Kodi. That's how I do it so far. ;)
But the girlfriend can't use Kodi while playing another Steam game on the PC.
Therefore the whole effort.

So there is no way to find out the APPID for a non-steam game apart from creating a shortcut? Or is a Ubuntu based OS known, where creating a shortcut works without any problems?

[Cat on Linux]

if you can read/understand python you can check this app code to see how they determine non-steam game appid (this is old version of the app)
look for "filename_for_shortcut"
https://github.com/scottrice/Ice/blob/7130b54c8d2fa7d0e2c0994ca1f2aa3fb2a27ba9/ice/steam_grid.py
the app is called Ice and used to run various old games from ROMs via steam

[M!GO]

I'll read it in and try it out when I get home!

Thanks a lot for that! I will report how it worked out.... if it interests ;)

[bird-or-cage [👾🐧]]

Another way to find AppId is to enable Proton for it (it does not matter that it is a non Steam Linux app).
Then you will have a folder created in ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/ with a long ID. That`s it.

[Marlock]

Isn't the AppId listed in game properties somewhere inside Steam's UI? That's lame...

Anyway, there is a good chance that adding a non-steam app/game causes steam to create an appmanifest file for it.

"in the steamapps folder you'll see a bunch of appmanifest_######.acf files [...]"

If you don't know what files I'm talking about, check out the full description in this thread:
https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/149837/how-do-i-find-the-id-for-a-game-on-steam/340077#340077

[M!GO]

Many thanks to bird-or-cage & Marlock!

I was only able to make a quick run yesterday. Kodi was started with Proton and a folder with a long number was created under the given path. However, Kodi could not be started under the Steam session.

I will reinstall the OS tonight, follow the two instructions and report here again.
Thanks again! :)

[M!GO]

Hello,

for anyone who is also interested in finding the AppID for non-steam games and apps:
- the folder stored in "~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/" does not match the AppID
- in the steamapps folder you'll see NOT a bunch of appmanifest_#######.acf files for non Steam games

instead you can find the shortcutnames at
"~/.steam/steam/userdata/xxxxxxxx/760/screenshots.vdf"
In my case it was 12591352671627116544 for the program Kodi.

Now you can change the entry "steam -tenfoot -steamos -enableremotecontrol" under "/usr/bin/steamos-session" to "steam steam://rungameid/12591352671627116544 -tenfoot -steamos -enableremotecontrol" and after successful start of Steam Kodi will be loaded automatically.

Thanks again for all the help!

[Marlock]

Thanks for the feedback!!!

That was particularly impossible to google an answer for, with endless pages of unrelated issues/tricks no matter the word combinations I tried to use, so it's great that the answer is preserved here.

Kind of rare to need to do what you needed to do, but I'm certain in the future others will want to try it too.

[miro]

Thanks man, greatly appreciated - I was looking for the exact same thing.

By the way, my kodi appID is 100% the same, obviously that number this is being generated with some hash function or something, it should be 12591352671627116544 for everyone.

[hex]

App ID for non-steam games appears to be calculated from the non-steam application's path. You can get it's ID by running the application and then visiting your proccess manager (Windows Task Manager or HTOP on Linux (mostly)). There you'll find procceses like "steam-webhelper-something" "steam-engine-thing" and so on so you'll find one named like "steamthing/app/75616" where 75616 will be your app ID.