Can you backup Steam games?

[Shaye87]

Howdy all

I am curious to know if you can backup Steam games, like you would backup World Of Warcraft for example, just copy the folder as is, paste it - and it works.

Thanks

 

[millsy888]

Backup the steamapps folder to another hard drive, then when the time comes, reinstall steam and copy the steamapps folder back and that should do it.

 

[Fens]

Alternatively if you do not want to backup the entire steamapps folder in one go (it can get quite large!) you can also backup individual games by finding the games folder in 'steamapps/common' and backing up that plus any of the games .ncf/.gcf files in the steamapps folder.

 

[Shaye87]

thank you

 

[iviv]

And as an alternative alternative, you can open steam, right click each game, and hit 'backup game files'. This will compress that game and give you a handy .exe file to install it on another PC later.
Though you'll have to do this with every game, so just copying the steamapps folder will be quicker

 

[PhillyDee]

You can backup the whole lot in one go through steam. It lets you split them into CD-Images, DVD Images, or custom size. It doesnt get any easier tbh.

 

[WARHURYEAH]

Yeah you can back them up

But I don't think you will be able to play the game without using steam.

I had to reformat my laptop and just saved all the files and put them back. Hey presto it's all done and working

 

[cplhardnut]

that backup option on steam is nice all my games are on dvd-r now saves me having to redownload all the games especially with my slow net!