"New Steam Library folder must be empty"

[h]

I recently had to re-install Ubuntu on my PC, and I have a dual boot between Ubuntu 16.04.1LTS and Windows 7. I'm sick of having to install my games seperately on Ubuntu and Windows, and now that Steam Proton exists, I thought I'd make it so that my Windows drive mounts to a directory in my home folder on startup on Ubuntu and add my Windows steam library there. When I tried, I got the message "New Steam Library folder must be empty." I've never gotten this error message before and I don't think it's because I'm trying to add a Windows library to Steam. Besides, I have games in my Windows lbirary that are natively Linux compatible. Can someone help?

Edit: I just tried the same thing with a USB drive that I use to store games I don't want anymore, but don't want to uninstall in case I want to play them again, and I didn't get the message, so I can't really tell if it's because I'm attempting to add a Windows library to Steam or not.

[Vaemer-Riit]

When you add a library folder it must be empty.

If you want to add an existing folder you should first rename the folder to something else. Then add the old folder name in steam. Then exit steam and delete the new empty library and rename the original one back to its original name.

For example:

If I have a folder D:\STEAM that has a bunch of games in it and I wanted to add that to steam then I would first rename it D:\STEAM.OLD

Once that is done I would launch steam and add a new library folder D:\STEAM

Then exit steam and delete the new D:\STEAM folder and rename D:\STEAM.OLD to D:\STEAM

once that is done restart steam and your games should show up as installed.

[mirHL]

You must point to the root folder that contains steamapps

[CaptnYesterday]

Originally posted by mirHL:

You must point to the root folder that contains steamapps

YES! Thanks! for the love of a simple tool tip that could have said this.

[deerfern]

Thank you, worked for me!

[BroAbdoo]

Originally posted by Vaemer-Riit:

When you add a library folder it must be empty.

If you want to add an existing folder you should first rename the folder to something else. Then add the old folder name in steam. Then exit steam and delete the new empty library and rename the original one back to its original name.

For example:

If I have a folder D:\STEAM that has a bunch of games in it and I wanted to add that to steam then I would first rename it D:\STEAM.OLD

Once that is done I would launch steam and add a new library folder D:\STEAM

Then exit steam and delete the new D:\STEAM folder and rename D:\STEAM.OLD to D:\STEAM

once that is done restart steam and your games should show up as installed.

Thanks for this it really worked.

[Faultyunit76]

On Linux (pop os)
Ive made sure that my HD destination is always formated to ext4,

most games will seem to work better or be found easier in linux if the hardrive is ext4 some do work under other formats though, Madmax for instance works fine under NTFS, but other games in the same folder on a NTFS drive
(would move there but not run, or just crash)

also Just having the folder destination as:

Steam Library
works when I had this error.

[Bucks]

Originally posted by Vaemer-Riit:

When you add a library folder it must be empty.

If you want to add an existing folder you should first rename the folder to something else. Then add the old folder name in steam. Then exit steam and delete the new empty library and rename the original one back to its original name.

For example:

If I have a folder D:\STEAM that has a bunch of games in it and I wanted to add that to steam then I would first rename it D:\STEAM.OLD

Once that is done I would launch steam and add a new library folder D:\STEAM

Then exit steam and delete the new D:\STEAM folder and rename D:\STEAM.OLD to D:\STEAM

once that is done restart steam and your games should show up as installed.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dude I love you. This has been on my nerves for the past 2 days. I did a clean on my PC without deleting files on the hard drives cuz I didn't want to bother reinstalling everything. And the confusion between Steam not recognising my already existing steam folder for games and creating a new one where I would need to move my mods and everything over manually has caused me so much needless anger. Thank you for this.

[An Hero]

Originally posted by mirHL:

You must point to the root folder that contains steamapps

This was the ticket for me.

I kept thinking it would create a new SteamLibrary folder for me within the "Games" folder I had, but I was wrong.

Turns out I just created a Games>SteamLibrary folder myself and then pointed it there.

[Crashed]

It's probably not a good idea to share a library folder between Linux and Windows. Some games have native Linux binaries and as such the Steam Client will download files matching the platform the Client is running on.

[John]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.