Can i easely hide an entire library ?

[Aeris]

Some might think i have too many naughty games but no, i use a 16TB hard drive as a backup for my steam games and a second one as a cold backup.

The idea was to download the largest games i own, put them on the hard drive so i can move them to my 2TB NVME whenever i want to play them.

After a few days, when i'm done with them, i move them back to the Hard drive to free up space on the NVME.

This way i do not have to re-download any game whenever i just get the urge to play them for a few days and then move to something else for a while.

I tend to hop from game to game, i do not usually play one game to the end and then start another.

Is there an easy way i can hide all the games on the hard drive quickly in steam itself so i do not see them in the normal library view but can find them in another filter on the left ?
Plain said a filter that is based on library location ?

At this point i am forced to rename the library on the Hard drive, make a new empty folder with the same name and then start steam.
This makes it steam only displays the library on the NVME as the one on the hard drive would appear empty.

I would love to keep everything visible in steam but just filter them out ?

Cheers !

[Yujah]

Other than moving the library outright you could supposedly also just rename the steamapps/appmanifest_*.acf files to "hide" the game(s) it/they refer to but also not very convenient, no.

I recently posted https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/4406292251594332846/

Using that you could add e.g. a flag "NVME" to a game when moving it there (and remove it again when moving back) and have when selected for sort/display a library category "NVME" that'd hold only your so self-defined "really ready to play" games. "Hiding" the rest is then a matter of ignoring said rest...

Not a perfect fit I guess if you already extensively use library categories and like those for primary sorting of your library -- but for what it's worth. Can't think of currently available method that'd make things truly convenient.

[Aeris]

Yeah, i started labeling them but then i kept forgetting to adapt it each time ...

[Yujah]

Good point; has little to do with the linked proposal indeed as compared to the already existing categories.

As opposed to moving the HDD library as you do now; isn't it less trouble to remove the HDD library from your Steam install outright and just add it back when you need it to be back?

But as far as I'm aware there's no other convenient way to "hide" a library, no.

[Aeris]

Well steam doesn’t allow removing a library as long as it detects installed games in that library.
Hence why i now rename the folder each time just to not have all those games show up each time.

[Yujah]

Originally posted by Aeris:

Well steam doesn’t allow removing a library as long as it detects installed games in that library.

Had to wait a bit to be at a (Windows) system where I could double check but, well, no; works for me. I have a same setup as you have, with Steam and its standard library on SSD and a secondary library on HDD. I can from Settings -> Storage remove and add back the HDD library without issue (even with that HDD library set default).


So, "can't reproduce".

[Aeris]

I'll be damned, last time i tried this it kept telling me i needed to uninstall all games before removing the library ...
But behold it works now !

Thanks :D

[Yujah]

Great :)