Move Steam client to another drive?

[Araxiel]

The title should pretty much say it all. But I'll elaborate:

I've got a new hard drive since my old one is dying on me. I'm slowly moving things to my new hard drive and I'm wondering if there is a way to move Steam and my games over to the new hard drive, without having to re-download everything (we're speaking of some 600gb of games, don't judge I'm a software hoarder). Further, I've got Steam games installed on other hard-drives, if I move the Steam Client, will it be able to find those other games?

TLDR:
How can I move Steam and Steam games between hard drives without a re-download of games?

[Hatman]

Moving steam itself is relatively simple. If the game repositories change drives it takes a little effort, but you don't have to redownload stuff.

Move steam and adjust the repositories they way you want them to be in the end.
Then make sure the game files are in the right place aswell.

If during the process some games "loose" their files in your library, just hit the Install button on each and they will rediscover the existing files.

I do it all the time when moving games between my SSD and HDD drives.

[Araxiel]

What about uninstalling and installing the Steam client? Will it uninstall all my games? Or will it keep the folders? Or is there an option to select which one of the two you want?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

No need to uninstall Steam Client; it will remove all Games.
Just move the Client to another location or drive and then right click Steam.exe and click Run As Admin; that's all you ever have to do. Then ensure your Steam Library Folder locations in Steam Settings > Downloads is correct.

[Slulego]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

...then right click Steam.exe and click Run As Admin

Thanks that's what I was missing!

[srashclaw]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

No need to uninstall Steam Client; it will remove all Games.
Just move the Client to another location or drive and then right click Steam.exe and click Run As Admin; that's all you ever have to do. Then ensure your Steam Library Folder locations in Steam Settings > Downloads is correct.

This really works!

[bloodtongol]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

No need to uninstall Steam Client; it will remove all Games.
Just move the Client to another location or drive and then right click Steam.exe and click Run As Admin; that's all you ever have to do. Then ensure your Steam Library Folder locations in Steam Settings > Downloads is correct.

as in moving the steam client folder?

[Val_lium]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

No need to uninstall Steam Client; it will remove all Games.
Just move the Client to another location or drive and then right click Steam.exe and click Run As Admin; that's all you ever have to do. Then ensure your Steam Library Folder locations in Steam Settings > Downloads is correct.

Silly question, but is this the steamclient.dll folder or steamclient64.dll?

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Cloning is the answer. Simple and easy. Even when changing from MBR to GPT partitions.

[Amelia]

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