Can You Move Steam Games to a Flash Drive?

Larissa updated on Jan 31, 2024 to Data Backup Questions Answered | How-to Articles

My laptop is running out of storage, and I need to make some room for my computer. The only choice is to move the Steam games data(about 8GB) to a flash drive. I am wondering if I can do this while keeping all my Steam games working well and intact.

The answer is YES, of course, you can.

Installing Steam games on a flash drive is a feasible and effective solution to free up more storage space on your computer. But there are some requirements you need to satisfy if you want your Steam game to work smoothly.

  • A robust flash drive that can read and write game data quickly.
  • The storage space of the hard drive is large enough to store all Steam game data.
  • Plug the hard drive into your computer when you play games.

Follow the specific steps below to move and migrate Steam games to a flash drive:

Step 1. Plug the external hard drive into your computer, and make sure it is detected.

Step 2. Open Steam - Settings - downloads - steam library folder - add library folder.

Step 3. Add the flash drive you just plugged in as a library(e.g. F drive:\steams\).

Step 4. Right-click the game you want to save to the flash drive, then click Properties - local file - move install.

Step 5. Choose the flash drive as the install location.

Saving your Steam on a flash drive does help a lot to save space on a computer, but it also means that the risk of game data loss will be greater. A flash drive is more vulnerable to destruction, or the game data may lose after you unplug the flash drive.

We strongly advise you to back up PC game saves. How to do that? Well, EaseUS Todo Backup is a reliable file backup program, and you can use it to store Steam game data to a hard drive, NAS, cloud services, etc. Even if you accidentally lose or delete game data, you can restore it with EaseUS Todo Backup at a quick speed.

Related Article: How to Copy Games from PC to USB or Pen Drive Efficiently