steam downloading folder question

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Grizzledorf Nov 27, 2014 @ 8:24pm

so going through my computer cleaning up some space i notice in steamapps there is a folder called downloading.

the folder is 11 gb! i do not have more than 1 gb worth of pending updates so i'm very confused.

is it safe for me to delete stuff in this folder? guess ill start googling so i may get the answer before someone can help me out. ill update this once i figure out if its safe or not in c ase anyone else is curious as well

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Showing 1-14 of 14 comments

wuddih Nov 27, 2014 @ 9:14pm

yeah, you can delete the contents, th stuff in there is probably from failed or stopped downloads

Grizzledorf Nov 27, 2014 @ 9:24pm

Originally posted by ☔ wuddih SpNv ✔:
yeah, you can delete the contents, th stuff in there is probably from failed or stopped downloads

aight i kinda assumed that. weird thing is when i started up my qued payday2 update which is under 300 mb.. the folder jumped from 11 gb to 16 gb. i also noticed i had source sdk 2006 on que so i then deleted it from tools. folder went down to 13 gb.

once payday 2 update is done installing ill check on remain size and then delete if there is anything in there.

thanks for the advice

Last edited by Grizzledorf; Nov 27, 2014 @ 9:24pm

CocoaAndTea Nov 27, 2014 @ 9:44pm

Oh dear, I should probably check my folder too <.>

Grizzledorf Nov 27, 2014 @ 9:57pm

ok so after payday 2 finished updating. the folder became empty. freakin weird that steam wanted to take up a chunk of 13 gb just for 300 mb update. i guess has to do with how updates get unpacked or whatever

so if anyone had download folder taking up space just make sure to allow all your pending updates to go through

Last edited by Grizzledorf; Nov 27, 2014 @ 9:57pm

Ghost Dog Dec 11, 2015 @ 12:58am

Yeah, PayDay 2 updates are HUUUUUGE. I have about 25GB of free space and sometimes it's insufficient for an update. In Steam the download claims to be 2,5GB (which is already big) but during installation the 'downloading' folder becomes over 23GB??

What I assume happens is that the downloads are heavily compressed and are extracted first to the download folder, then copied to the Steam directory so they are actually 3 times on your disk before the installation files get cleaned up.

This is quite horrible and I wish there was a way to keep the games on my C-drive (SSD) but move the download folder to my other drive (regular SATA).

Ace Feb 6, 2018 @ 8:52pm

Originally posted by Ghost Dog:
Yeah, PayDay 2 updates are HUUUUUGE. I have about 25GB of free space and sometimes it's insufficient for an update. In Steam the download claims to be 2,5GB (which is already big) but during installation the 'downloading' folder becomes over 23GB??

What I assume happens is that the downloads are heavily compressed and are extracted first to the download folder, then copied to the Steam directory so they are actually 3 times on your disk before the installation files get cleaned up.

This is quite horrible and I wish there was a way to keep the games on my C-drive (SSD) but move the download folder to my other drive (regular SATA).

There is a way you can move the downloading folder. Create a folder named Junctions on your second Drive where you will be moving the folder to. When nothing is updating in steam, copy the empty "downloading" folder to the Junctions folder you made. Delete the downloading folder from your C drive. Now this is where it gets a bit technical. Open an Administrator Command Prompt, and type

mklink /J "C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/downloading" "D:/Junctions/downloading"

This should create a Junction link called "downloading" in your C drive steam folder that points to your the new location on the D drive "Junctions" folder. From now on when steam tries to update it will store files in the the D drive instead. Basically junction links allow you to move folders to other drives without the programs knowing it. You do however have to be very careful the name of the junction link shortcut is the same. The new place you store the downloading folder can actually be called anything. It just makes it simpler if you put it in a specific folder, named the exact same thing. You can also use this trick to move games or parts of games to other drives. You just have to keep in mind if that folder name changes because of an update to the game, you'll have to remake the junction link. But normally folders remain named the same thing. Also do not change the location of the downloading folder on your D drive unless you are prepared to remake the junction link back in the original location.

I learned to do this by reading the instructions here. If you want to know more read it. It's not very long. There is even a tool referenced in the article that adds a right click option to create junction points much more quickly without a command prompt.

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

Last edited by Ace; Feb 6, 2018 @ 8:56pm

Gimpsta Apr 18, 2019 @ 8:47am

Ace's method worked perfectly for me. Thanks!!

Stele Dior Dec 2, 2020 @ 12:40pm

Originally posted by wuddih:
yeah, you can delete the contents, th stuff in there is probably from failed or stopped downloads

ahh yes... 6 years later hahah. so hypothetically if my download fails can i simply transfer bigger files to my installation folder (in this case red dead redemptoon 2) and continue downloading other files? sorry for being annoying

Ace Dec 19, 2020 @ 1:40pm

Originally posted by 🦝:
Originally posted by wuddih:
yeah, you can delete the contents, th stuff in there is probably from failed or stopped downloads
ahh yes... 6 years later hahah. so hypothetically if my download fails can i simply transfer bigger files to my installation folder (in this case red dead redemptoon 2) and continue downloading other files? sorry for being annoying

Hypothetically, maybe. But in practice my guess is the downloaded files are compressed and possibly encrypted. Therefore, your probably safer just starting the download from the beginning. But I suppose there is no harm in trying you can always uninstall and reinstall.

Stele Dior Dec 20, 2020 @ 4:01am

Originally posted by Ace:
Originally posted by 🦝:
ahh yes... 6 years later hahah. so hypothetically if my download fails can i simply transfer bigger files to my installation folder (in this case red dead redemptoon 2) and continue downloading other files? sorry for being annoying

Hypothetically, maybe. But in practice my guess is the downloaded files are compressed and possibly encrypted. Therefore, your probably safer just starting the download from the beginning. But I suppose there is no harm in trying you can always uninstall and reinstall.

I just copied bigger files to another folder, uninstalled the game from library, pasted those files to RDR2 folder in steamapps/common/rdr2 and started downloading again and it started from 64GB.

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