How to Backup Steam Games to External Hard Disk?

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

Hi! Can someone help me? I‘d like to back up all my Steam games from my PC to an external hard drive so that I can play the game on another PC without downloading it again. What should I do now? Thanks :)

Hi you. Here are 2 ways for you to back up Steam games to an external hard disk.

  • Method 1. Backup the Steam Folder

Step 1. Navigate to the Steam game folder: SteamApps> Common. All your game files will be stored here.

Step 2. Back up the whole folder to your external hard drive.

Step 3. Then move to another device and log in to your Steam account.

Step 4. Head to the install location and paste the backup to the same location.

Tip: This method has a shortcoming. Some game needs to download again from 5% to 50%.

  • Method 2. Backup Your System

Step 1. Run the Steam app and choose Back Up and Restore Game.

Step 2. Click the Backup Currently Installed Game and choose all games.

Step 3. After copying files to your external hard drive, move to another PC.

Step 4. Run the Steam app and choose Back Up and Restore Game again.

Step 5. Select your HDD as the restore location and restore all game files.

As an advice, I recommend you to use EaseUS Todo Backup as your backup help. It's a totally professional backup tool that can free your hands and automatically help you complete backup tasks. 

When you back up game files to a new device, your game saves will not be synchronized to the new computer. Although many games now support the Steam Cloud feature, which can help you restore game progress, Steam Cloud is not reliable and is prone to unknown errors. 

You can go to the game saves location and use EaseUS to create an intelligent backup plan, save copies to the cloud space it provides, and easily transfer them to a new computer. HDD is not required during the entire process, which is even more convenient. 

Related article: [Steam Tutorial] How to Backup and Restore Steam Game Files