steam won't move a game to a specific drive ?

[Esper]

I got an external 6tb hard drive just somewhere to move the games I don't play so often and free up space on the ssd for new stuff.

only issue is steam dosn't seem to allow me to select the drive as a destination any ideas what may be restricting this ?

[RPG Gamer Man]

steam does not like external hard drives:

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4578-18A7-C819-8620

External Hard Drives
External hard drives are not recommended for use with Steam or Steam's games. Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Make a folder on your USB drive and name it Steam.
Then go to Steam top left corner>settings downloads>library folders> click on the E or D drive make default by clicking on the arrows at then end of rightside.
Then when you go to move installation files on windows drive library by right clicking game > properties> move installation files select Steam on USB be it E or D
It will then create the Steamapps and common in that folder.
If you forget to have it plugged in when you Start Steam your games on that drive will appear as Install in your library, easy to fix . Just plug the USB drive in wait till it loads and the play will appear again
USB drive are perfectly safe but remember to replace them every 4 o 5 years and only buy the best Western Digital, don't buy Seagate. Unrelible where as WD are have better quality parts.

[tintingaroo]

Ooops, also posted steps to create the Steam Library - didn't refresh...

BTW it's OK to connect the drive after Steam is opened. Things operate like how it is on the Steam Deck, connect drive > games appear, disconnect > games disappear.

[Esper]

thanks, I guess at some point I must have done that before since I had my system drive and my d: both accessible to steam,but its working with the big drive now thanks <3 though I do have a few followup questions!

first I made a steam folder but steam went and made a "steamlibrary" on the root drive and moved my game there ... did I miss something ? guess there is no real harm in having it in this folder thoguh.


second, is there a way I can juggle my drive letters ? e.g. I want to move all the d: games to e: then remove d: from the system, and make e: the new d: do I need extra steps to let steam know ? though I guess it isn't important as I can just leave it has e: and have no d:

thanks

[Iceira]

Did you even add a steam lib as multi lib, if you dont then it wont show move option to it.