How to Move Steam Games to Another Drive in 2 Ways

How to move Steam games to another drive? Players usually need to perform this operation for different reasons but have no idea how. So, in this tutorial, 2 sperate ways – using Steam inbuilt feature to create another installation folder or using a third-party utility – are provided.

Can I move Steam games to another drive?

I'm a big fan of video games and Steam is one of my favorite game distribution platforms. During the recent 3 years, I have downloaded dozens of games from Steam including GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Just Cause. In the beginning, everything went normal. However, today, when I tried downloading a game called Squad, I was prompted that Steam didn't have enough disk space. I went back and checked my C drive which was the install drive and found that it was almost full. So, I'm wondering whether I can move Steam games to another drive which has bigger storage space?

Why move Steam games to another drive?

Steam, as the world's biggest video game digital distribution service by Valve, has attracted millions of users worldwide as of today. Since its first launch as a standalone software client in September 2003, it has brought us a large number of masterpieces including Grand Theft Auto series, CS:GO, and Dota 2.

Usually, people install Steam games in a certain drive and store the games in the Steam library folder. Things are like that for regular users. However, sometimes, Steam users wish to move the games to another drive, for example, from C to D. What're their purposes? In the following contents, I listed the top 3 situations where people need to move a Steam game to another drive.

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1. 1. To get the most out of an SSD. Since SSD is faster in read and write, by moving a game from a regular HDD to a more advanced SSD can bring the game shorter load time, especially for those large-sized ones with complicated graphic rendering.
2. 2. The Steam install drive is full. Nowadays, games become literally larger than before and 80 or even 100GB is not a rare thing anymore. Storage space seems no longer sufficient and people constantly run into issues like C or D drive full. In this case, move Steam games to another drive seems the best solution.
3. 3. To use an external device for storage. External hard drives are common devices for their convenience and portability. People use an external USB or hard drive to store their personal files, apps, and even games so that they can carry them around wherever they go. If you wish to store some Steam games in an external drive, then, moving from your PC to it becomes a necessary step.

How to move Steam games to another drive?

In the paragraphs above, you learnt, sometimes, for some reasons, it's necessary to move Steam games to another drive. But here's the question – how? Thankfully, you've come to the right place. Here, I put 2 basic ways easy and detailed.

Method 1. Moving the library folder to another drive

How to move a Steam game to another drive? To change location of Steam games, of course, you can simply copy the games to other drives. However, in this way, boot files may be missing that you can't successfully launch the games. Luckily, nowadays, Steam has been embedded with a built-in feature to relocate the game library folder in a few steps.

1. 1. Run Steam Launcher first. Then, follow the path 'Steam' > 'Downloads' > 'STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS'.
2. 2. Hit 'ADD LIBRARY FOLDER', select a destination drive, and hit 'NEW FOLDER' to write a directory name.

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1. 3. Return to the main interface, right-click on the game you want to move and then, select 'Properties'.

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1. 4. Hit 'Local Files'. After that, click on 'MOVE INSTALL FOLDER'.

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1. 5. Hit 'MOVE FOLDER' to launch the game moving process.

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1. 6. After it's completed, click on 'CLOSE' to quit.

Method 2. Resorting to third-party disk manager

With Steam, you can move one single game from one drive to another quick and secure. However, if you wish to move multiple games simultaneously, then, you must find some third-party software. Here, I recommend an impressive partition manager AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, with whose inbuilt feature app mover, one can move files including games and apps from one drive to another within only a few clicks. Meanwhile, with this powerful software, you can also choose to move an entire disk or partition to another disk or partition with its disk partition cloner.

How to move Steam game to external/internal hard drive? Download the demo of the most powerful disk manager to have a try!

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional and wait until all disks and their partitions appear on the main interface. Click on 'All Tools' on the left side and then, select 'App Mover' under the 'Other Tools' tab.

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Step 2. Select the partition where the installed games are and after that, hit 'Next' to proceed.

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Step 3. Tick the Steam games you want to move and preset the destination drive. Then, hit 'Move'.

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Step 4. Hit 'OK' when promoted with a warning and the transfer will begin.

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Step 5. After completed, click on 'Finish'.

Now, navigate to the destination drive and see whether the games are there.

Conclusion

How to move Steam games to another drive? This time, I explained why you should do that and gave 2 pragmatic solutions – using Steam inbuilt feature to relocate game library and using third-party app mover. The former one can only move 1 game every time while the latter one is able to move several games simultaneously.

Lesley Montoya

Update 01 May 2021