Backing up my Steam games

[{FITH}™ Nanomachines Son]

Hey all.

I'm working on backing up my Steam Library to an external hard drive. How should I/what's the best way to back up my game data? Is it as simple as just copying and pasting my Steam Library, or is there another method I should use.

All advise will be appreciated.

[76561193857876471]

If you use Steam's Backup and Restore option, it will compress the files, which may save you time/space. Not all games support cloud saving, in that case you need to find and backup the save files separately.

[{FITH}™ Nanomachines Son]

Originally posted by moeroris:

If you use Steam's Backup and Restore option, it will compress the files, which may save you time/space. Not all games support cloud saving, in that case you need to find and backup the save files separately.

So Backup and Restore onto an external hard drive is the best option?

[76561193857876471]

Not necessarily, no. Not all games compress well. And you can't play a game backed up with Backup and Restore until you use the feature again to uncompress the files. Both compressing and uncompressing take a reasonably large amount of time. It's the option which produces smaller files, and thus on paper, shorter transfer times.

If you have a reasonably fast hard drive, you can probably get away with just copying the Steam folder over.

[Умный Ганс]

opop, im just here =P

[TeKraken]

Steam back up feature is not all good.
If you back up several games at once, when you go to restore the games the feature only finds the first game in your selection.

Much easier to just copy paste the whole steam folder across, or at least your Steam\steamapps (for game data) and Steam\userdata (for some game saves/screenshots/config files).

Edit,
There is also the other randomly located saves that are not in the steam folder but in C:\Users\YOU\AppData etc.

You can either dig them all out if you care about them or use an app like gamesavemanager which will (using a database) make backups of these saves with various options.

[{FITH}™ Nanomachines Son]

Originally posted by TeKraken:

Much easier to just copy paste the whole steam folder across, or at least your Steam\steamapps (for game data) and Steam\userdata (for some game saves/screenshots/config files).

So if I just copy and past those two folders into my external that will get everything from game data and save files not synched with the cloud?

Later down the road I would just have to paste those files back into my computer's hard drive to reinstall them?

[76561193857876471]

Some save data is stored in the roaming folder, others in your documents... it can be all over the place, unfortunately.

[76561198184482466]

just copy-paste them to the separated place (external preffered). for safety

[cris (бабабуи)]

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[Jester]

I figured out this logic when backing up my steamapps with standard copy/paste method. The order of operations did not matter in the past, but now you have to do most games a certain way to backup with this method.

Originally posted by SacJester15:

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate X64

In the past, I was able to buy the game in Steam and click Install (so Steam would create the file tree needed for the game on the Hard Drive of my choosing).

After a minute, I pause the download - Exit Steam - Copy the files from the backup drive "...\steamapps\common\GameFolder" to the new drive: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GameFolder" (or the appropriate location)

I could then open Steam - Library - Right click on Game - Properties - Local Files - Verify Integrity of Game Cache...

The files would verify, then it would download a few small files/updates and I could play the game.

This method No Longer Works.


***SOLUTION***
DO NOT click Install before moving the files from one hard drive to the other.

1. Close Steam.
2. Copy Files to the new location...
3. Open Steam - Library - Game - Install - Choose the correct Install path up to "...\steamapps" and Install the game... (The Install should complete without having to download any files.)
4. Right Click the Game - Properties - Local Files - Verify Integrity of Game Cache...
5. You may or may not have some small files/updates to download, but after that, you are ready to play.


*Note:
~ If you already clicked Install before moving the files you messed up. Steam now uses a different location for downloading files: "...\steamapps\downloading". Having any files in there from your game will cause Steam to think that you still need to download the entire game even after you copy the files to the correct path. Steam recognizes the "...\steamapps\downloading" directory before noticing that all the files are already in the actual game folder. (Moving and downloading the files can also cause you to accidentally double the amount of space used on your hard drive by a particular game.) ~

If you clicked install before moving your files, you might have to add Step 0 to the beginning of this solution.

0. Open Steam - Library - Right click the game - Properties - Local Files - Delete Local Game Content...
(This will delete the game files from both "...\steamapps\downloading" and "...\steamapps\common\GameFolder")
Proceed to Steps 1 - 5 above.


This Process worked for me on several different games I was having trouble moving from a backup location to my new SSD on 3/28/2015.

[SerfT]

if your worried about your game saves try gamesave manager... it does the work for you.
I am a very happy customer. ps. it is currently free ;)

heres the link if interested http://www.gamesave-manager.com/

[SerfT]

as for backing up your hard drive. I got a duplicate drive (same model etc. in system) and once in a while when computer is runing good I use a program called "driveclone" by farstone. to clone it...

just in case the other drive crashes of comes up with a problem...bad driver etc.
then all I have to do is boot other drive and im back to gameing

heres the link http://www.farstone.com/software/drive-clone.php

I think it is still free for non-commercial use still

[davidshao12]

I also was able to move my files just as SacJester explained, but with one exception. I had to add the common folder to the steamapps folder. Then I just copied all of my old game folders over.

[Dipsy]

thx

[cinek]

hi