How to fix Steam Library Collections/Categories not syncing or disappearing between computers (PC & Mac)

[nwtanic]

Steam used to locally store categories/collections in 'sharedconfig.vdf', but now it appears to be 'leveldb' that keeps them up to date.

If you're having trouble with your collections/categories disappearing or not being in sync between computers, I found that copying the 'leveldb' folder from my most up-to-date client to the other clients fixed my issues. The 'leveldb' directory appears to be platform-agnostic so you can copy it from Windows to Mac/Linux and vice versa.

Quit Steam completely (from the system tray in Windows) before messing with the files and make backups of 'leveldb' on each computer just in case something goes wrong.

PC location: C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Local\Steam\htmlcache\Local Storage\leveldb
Mac location: /Users/<your user>/Library/Application Support/Steam/config/htmlcache/Local Storage/leveldb

Hope this helps! I couldn't find a solution anywhere so maybe this will show up in searches for people that need it.

[nwtanic]

Linux location (I think): ~/.steam/steam/htmlcache/Local Storage/leveldb

[celerywheat]

I just tried this on Linux (ubuntu 24.04), and found that the linux path is:

~/.steam/steam/config/htmlcache/Local Storage/leveldb

That said, this doesn't seem to work for me: using rm -r leveldb and rebooting, then starting steam, the missing collection is still missing for me after leveldb is regenerated.

as an experiment, I tried removing leveldb with steam open, then creating a new collection and adding a game. then I used the trick mentioned below to add the missing collection temporarily. After restarting steam leveldb was regenerated, and the test collection was present, but the collections were once again missing which indicates to me this isn't the correct set of files to be modifying, at least on linux

A thread on reddit gives a method I've found works temporarily, but after restarting steam collections disappear again

I'll keep messing with it and report back

[ALF131]

very nice

[nwtanic]

Originally posted by celerywheat:

I just tried this on Linux (ubuntu 24.04), and found that the linux path is:

~/.steam/steam/config/htmlcache/Local Storage/leveldb

That said, this doesn't seem to work for me: using rm -r leveldb and rebooting, then starting steam, the missing collection is still missing for me after leveldb is regenerated.

as an experiment, I tried removing leveldb with steam open, then creating a new collection and adding a game. then I used the trick mentioned below to add the missing collection temporarily. After restarting steam leveldb was regenerated, and the test collection was present, but the collections were once again missing which indicates to me this isn't the correct set of files to be modifying, at least on linux

A thread on reddit gives a method I've found works temporarily, but after restarting steam collections disappear again

I'll keep messing with it and report back

Sorry to hear it didn't work for you. Maybe try putting the 'leveldb' folder from your up-to-date client on a flash drive (or emailing it to yourself / whatever is easiest) and replacing your Linux 'leveldb' with it. It worked for me from Windows to Mac.

[celerywheat]

I did a little more messing around, and found that just doing a sudo apt remove steam isn't actually enough to fully remove steam from your system. This leaves a ton of random files and directories still present on the system.

I did sudo apt remove and sudo apt purge on : steam, steam-devices, and steam installer
Then I followed up with:

find . -type d -iname steam\*

to find any directories containing the word steam and used rm -rf on them

Then there were STILL things left on the system, found with dpkg --list | grep steam
and i used dpkg --remove and dpkg --purge on them

.... after reinstalling steam after all of this... the collections were still not appearing. I have no idea where the hell the files managing this are.

[nwtanic]

I have a feeling Steam stores them in the cloud (maybe a separate copy there for each of your devices), in which case the only way to modify them would be to replace/change (rather than just delete) your 'leveldb' directory so the cloud files update too.

[celerywheat]

Well it definitely is at least partly getting updates from the cloud, which would be why forcing an update by changing the name or adding a game to a collection works temporarily. Which would also indicate it isn't device specific in cloud storage. the problem then is that whatever local cached version isn't being updated. which is where trying to make steam those files manually comes it. The problem is then that while leveldb seems to be the location on windows and mac, it doesn't seem to be correct for linux

or my machine is uniquely screwed up somehow

[nwtanic]

You're probably right, but have you tried doing exactly what I suggested (copying 'leveldb' from another device to your Linux)? My hunch is that something locally cached in 'leveldb' on the up-to-date client(s) is outdated on the Linux one and doesn't get properly written by Steam's cloud update, so copying the whole folder over it might fix that issue.

[celerywheat]

That was a good call, that seems to have fixed it.

There's ABSOLUTELY something very wrong on valve's end here though. I reinstalled my OS today (unrelated issues from a changed username) and that STILL didn't fix it

[nwtanic]

Nice! I'll edit the original post to only suggest copying the file.

Agreed, and I imagine it wouldn't be terribly difficult to reproduce and fix on their end. I'll submit a report in case they don't know about it yet.

[🅻🅾🅶🅰🅽]

Thanks a lot, this solution really have solved my issue!