Can i compress the steam folder

[Meccanizer]

I relized steam takes up alot of space 187gb!!! so i wanted to know if i can compress the folder to save up some space and if so should i use a programm for it?

[TirithRR]

Some Operating systems can automatically compress drives (but it slows the drive down). But it's better just to get another HDD, they are cheap these days. IMO, the speed drop isn't worth it.

[ᴠᴀʀ]

You can refresh your steam files by deleting files inside the steamfolder. This may get you some more free space. Don't be suprised if it's just a few MB...

You can refresh these files without deleting your game files.
Please follow this process to refresh your Steam files:

• Exit Steam
  
• Navigate to your Steam installation directory. (C:\Program Files\Steam\ by default.)
  
• Delete everything in that directory EXCEPT the following:
  steam.exe
  steamapps directory (All of Steam's game files are kept here.)
  OPTIONAL : Userdata directory (Contains screenshots + steamguard + autologin)
  
• Restart Steam (Click the steam.exe)

[TirithRR]

Refreshing Steam files isn't the question here :)

[ᴠᴀʀ]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย TirithRR:

Refreshing Steam files isn't the question here :)

It's not refreshing, it's clearing up log files and old data. Or is compression something different these day's? Surely it ain't the same, but the purpose (Gaining more free space) is totaly relevant.

[Meccanizer]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย sm0:

You can refresh your steam files by deleting files inside the steamfolder. This may get you some more free space. Don't be suprised if it's just a few MB...

You can refresh these files without deleting your game files.
Please follow this process to refresh your Steam files:

• Exit Steam
  
• Navigate to your Steam installation directory. (C:\Program Files\Steam\ by default.)
  
• Delete everything in that directory EXCEPT the following:
  steam.exe
  steamapps directory (All of Steam's game files are kept here.)
  OPTIONAL : Userdata directory (Contains screenshots + steamguard + autologin)
  
• Restart Steam (Click the steam.exe)

i dont wana delete all my steam files except steam.exe i will feel like everything will be lost

[gladiator]

Just buy new hdd.

[KKiONI]

It's not the best idea to compress the folder that stores game data. This could introduce stuttering in your game caused by the game taking longer to retrieve assets.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mangekyo Sharingan:

i dont wana delete all my steam files except steam.exe i will feel like everything will be lost

It shouldn't harm data you would want to keep provided you follow the steps exactly. Although, the amount of space you'd gain from that would be minimal.

My suggestion would be to just get an external hard drive to install your games on or to go through your list of installed games and uninstall games you haven't played in a while.

[Silicon Vampire]

You would not gain much space for the drawbacks it causes. games are mostly compressed anyway...

[SlayaNoob]

I compress my steam library. 1.12 TB down to 922 GB. Use the built in Windows Compression. There are some drawbacks. The games are slower to update and if you do this on an SSD, you will kill your SSD faster from excess writes. The benefits are you would get more space depending on your games and possible increase on loading speed. I have noticed faster loading speed as smaller data can be read quicker and the processor can decompress the data on the fly.

[✪ BlackMaster ✪]

i keep all my steam games on separate HDD but only dota 2 is on my SSD in the steam install folder. i have the entire steam folder compressed with windows and it drops from 15.6 GB to 11.4 GB, wich is not something to ignore and i have noticed apsolutely no difference in fps, load times etc. Don't know how this would affect HDD but maybe you can try, it worst case scenario you get longer load times and uncompress it. Windows compresion works by making files smaller and decompressing them with CPU while they are in RAM.

[Backstab]

This sucks Windows 10 automatically updated and started compressing all of my steam games , introducing suttering and ssd degradation: https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/122806-win10-keeps-compressing-c-drive-files-new-old-cannot-stop.html

[Muppet among Puppets]

Its best anyway to have steam and other things on another partition