• Steam: transfer games to another drive. Three ways to transfer a Steam game to another drive

    It is the most popular gaming service. With its help you can conveniently purchase, download and install many computer games. And the prices of this service, especially during periods of sales and promotions, are so attractive that you will very quickly have several dozen games on your disk. The only trouble is that modern games take so much disk space that disk space begins to rapidly disappear. There is only one way out - move the games from the default folder to another location.

    You won't be able to simply move the game folder, as this will most likely make the game inoperable. Therefore, to solve this problem there is special utility called . In its work, the program uses the link creation function available for file NTFS systems, so your drives should use it. In principle, everything can be done manually, but using the utility is much easier and more convenient.

    Actually, the mechanism of operation is simple and completely clear from the screenshot. After launch, the utility automatically finds your installed games and displays a list of them in the left panel. You select a new location for the game folders on the right and press the button Move to Storage. After some time, the data is moved to a new location while games remain fully functional, and you enjoy the free space on the disk.

    Works in operating rooms Windows systems 7/Vista and weighs 380 kb. You can download it.

    You will need

    • - tablet/phone to which you want to transfer your games or applications
    • - computer
    • - Internet access

    Instructions

    Turn on your phone or tablet to which you want to transfer applications from your previous device. Make sure your Google account is activated on your device. To do this, just go to the “Settings” section of your phone or tablet. “Settings” -> “Accounts” -> “Google”.

    Connect the Internet on your device. To do this, in the “Settings” section, click the “Connections” tab. Select "Connect via Wi-Fi" because... if you use mobile internet, you risk using up your entire monthly Internet traffic limit, and possibly exceeding it, which can lead to a rather hefty bill for services mobile communications.

    Open a browser on your computer and address bar enter the following address: https://play.google.com/store
    Click on the “Login” button located on the right top corner. Enter your username and password for your account Google posts.

    To go to the list of applications that you want to transfer to another device, click on the “Applications” tab. The tab is located at the top left of the page. On the page that opens, click on the “My Applications” tab. Now you have access to a list of games and applications installed on your device. A noteworthy fact is that the list will contain not only those games that are installed on your device, but also those that you installed but deleted for some reason.

    Select the application that you want to transfer to another device by clicking on its icon or name. On the application page, click the “Installed” button. In the pop-up window that appears, select the phone/tablet to which you want to transfer the games and click the “Install” button. You can now return to previous page to select other applications to transfer. And repeat the procedure.

    Please note

    This transfer method is only valid for those games and applications that you installed from PlayMarket. On applications installed from third party sources this method is not covered.

    Be sure to make sure that all the applications you select are successfully installed on your phone or tablet. Otherwise, the phone will “try” to download them the first time it connects to the Internet, and if this fails WiFi connection, and mobile Internet, this may lead to additional financial costs.

    Holders unlimited tariffs on mobile Internet, this advice may be ignored.

    There will come a time when, thanks to Steam games, you won't have any space left on your hard drive. Then you will need to either delete unnecessary ones, or simply transfer them to another HDD. But how to do this if they are tied to the created library? There are ways, including those offered by the service itself.

    As you know, after you download Steam, it creates a library where all the toys are downloaded. This is quite convenient from a systematization point of view. However, it is then difficult for users to transfer the game to Steam to another drive: they have to delete it and download it again. After all, if you simply transfer the folder with the program to another location, the service will throw an error when starting. Let's look at three methods that will allow you to avoid this error.

    Powered by Steam

    The service recently added an option that allows you to automatically transfer games to another directory or to another HDD. It is not performed automatically, but nevertheless almost always fails. You must first create another library, and then move it to a new section through the game properties.

    1. Click on the Steam button, which is located in the upper left corner.
    2. Select “Settings” from the drop-down menu.

    3. In the settings window we find the “Downloads” section.
    4. Under the “Libraries” item there is a link “Steam Library Folders”. Click on it.

    5. In the list that opens, you can see a list of all directories and see how much space they take up. Click on the “Add Folder” button.

      "Add Folder" on Steam

    6. Select the hard drive and its partition in which the new library will be located.

    7. Exit the settings and go to the list of installed games.
    8. Right-click on the toy that you want to send to another location and select “Properties”.
    9. Open the “Local Files” tab.
    10. Click on the Move install folder button. By the way, it was not previously in the service.

      "Move install folder" on Steam

    11. In the library selection window, select a new location for our game.
    12. Click Move folder.

      "Move folder" on Steam

    13. The transfer process will start. If the game is large and the HDD or SSD is connected via USB, this may take some time.

    14. At the end they will tell us where we moved the game and how many files were transferred.

    The main thing is not to turn off the computer while copying files. Otherwise, the transfer of games may be disrupted, and its data may be damaged.

    The method appeared not so long ago, so some users may have difficulties with it. Plus, perhaps you haven’t updated Steam for a long time and for some reason you don’t want to do it. Then there are two more for you alternative methods, one of which will be slightly faster.

    Steam Tool Library Manager

    This is a special utility that automates the process of creating a library and sending selected programs to it. Quite convenient, it takes up very little space and does everything relatively quickly. If you need to transfer many toys at once, it is better to use Tool Library Manager.


    That's all, as you can see, here it happens even faster. Games then, as a rule, launch without any complaints.

    Regular readers know that I use Gigabyte Intel Solid State Drive. Hard drive works great in combination with 2TB hard drive which I use to store data and some major programs, which do not require fast hard drive . But sometimes I run into problems disk.

    For example, take Steam software. It can only install new games on the same hard drive, where all other games are installed. This big problem, which led to several solutions on the Internet. Some users have moved games to another drive, while others have deleted games to make room for new games. But this is not the only problem. For example, there are games that can only be installed on the C:/ drive and some applications have the same restrictions.
    My method is to process spatial problems on drives to move applications or games to another disk without reinstalling them or losing data. I recently installed Dragon Age to your C:/ drive. I decided to move games from the C:\ drive to another hard drive With a large number space.
    This process itself is quite simple. Just move the files to Windows Explorer, or any other file manager you use, to another hard drive. You can move folders by clicking during a drag-and-drop operation (unless you click copy files).
    Most games and applications no longer launch after after they were moved to another hard drive. The solution to this problem is to create a symbolic link and Windows comes with a program that will help you do just that. Open a command prompt with administrator rights. You will find the command prompt under accessories in the menu Windows Start. Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
    The commands we will use to create this are: called the Mklink jump directory. The jump directory basically says operating system o creating a mirror to another directory that provides access to all files from the selected directory to the mirror directory. Files and folders from a directory mirror are actually only redirected to the destination where they actually reside. Essentially, this means that you can install a game, program or Windows so that the files and folders are in the right place.
    mklink /J "new folder" "folder with the files"

    This basic commands which we will use. /J The parameter determines the type of symbolic link we are creating, in this case the jump directory. The new folder is a mirror folder and folders with files in the folder containing the real files.

    Mklink/J"C:\ Program Files(x86)\Dragon Age\"E:\Games\Dragon Age"

    This creates a jump directory so that the files and folders E:\Games\Dragon Age are accessible to the program and under Windows C:\Program Files (x86)\Dragon Age\a (where they were originally installed).

    C:\Windows\system32>Mklink /J "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dragon Age\" C:\Games\Dragon Age\"
    Junction was created for C:\Program Files (x86)\Dragon Age\<<===>>C:\Games\DragonAge\

    This principle can be applied to other applications or games. For example, you can move some Steam games or files to another hard drive to free up space for installation new program or games. Mklink is available in Windows Vista and Windows 7. I'm not sure if this can be done in Windows XP, it would be nice if someone did this with XP, let me know in the comments. There are also programs that can create transitions, if necessary, you can download one of them from the following link Junction.

    This is a common scenario. You just bought yourself a luxury new hard drive (I think SSD) and want to transfer your games to it, if so, then you can say goodbye to horrendous loading times forever. But deleting and reinstalling the game again can take several hours, especially considering the fact that you'll probably need to download it again.

    There is a decision to postpone installed games on the PC directly, rather than reinstalling them. But unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as just copying and pasting them wherever you want, but it's not too complicated either.

    Manual method

    If you want to move games from Steam, Origin or Uplay, you can do it without third party software. We'll use Steam as an example because it's the most popular platform, but the same principle applies to other platforms.

    First, go to the game's directory and cut and paste it to where you want to transfer it to your new hard drive. (If you are inserting a game into Steam, make sure that it is in the “steamapps/common” folder, as the steam will automatically look for these subdirectories. You can insert the games, for example, into “My Games - My Games/steamapps/common” or “Steam” games - Steam Games/steamapps/common.”

    Once you have done this, delete the game from your computer by going to your Steam library, right-clicking and clicking “Delete Local Content.”

    Go to the download settings in Steam (in Steam, click Steam in the upper left corner -> Settings -> Downloads.) click the “Steam Library Folders -> Add Folder to Library” button, then select the directory where you inserted your game. (Don't include the “steamapps/common” part here, as Steam will apply everything automatically.)

    Close the settings window, go to your (deleted) game in your Steam library, click the install button and select new folder, install the game where you just added it to Steam. All game files are now there, Steam will skip the process of downloading and installing the game on new Disk.

    The exact details will vary, but you can do pretty much the same thing - copy and paste the game, delete it, and reinstall it again without downloading again - on Uplay, Origin, etc.

    Use Steam Move

    Alternatively, you can use an extremely lightweight but useful little tool called the Steam Mover. How Steam Mover works - it can move all game files to a folder of your choice, leaving the node in the original location. This means that you should not delete a game folder that is left in the game's original location, as this may remove the connection points and Steam will not be able to find them when you try to launch the game. Despite the name, you can also use Steam Mover for Origin, gog, upplay or other games - and any other programs and files you want to transfer to a new drive!

    You can download Steam Mover on the Internet. Once you have done this, unpack and install it wherever you like.

    Open Steam program Mover and it should automatically detect and list all Steam games in its library. If not, click on the three dots next to “ Shared folder Steam applications- Steam Apps Common Folde" to manually find your Steam library on your hard drive, select them and click the "Update" button.

    Next, in the list of your games, select all the ones you want to move by holding down CTRL key when selecting each one so that they are all highlighted. Once you've done this, click on the blue right-facing arrow at the bottom of the window to move all selected games to the new Drive. A Command Prompt window will appear, showing how quickly all the files are moving as they are moved. When command line closes, you will see blue arrows for each game in the right column, which means the job is completed.

    Conclusion

    Being able to easily transfer installed games to PC between hard drives is a handy skill, not only because it saves time, but also because it potentially saves gigabytes of hard drive space when downloading again. If you have a lot of downloads on your PC, or the connection is throttled and if you have had too many downloads in a short period of time, then this can save you a headache!

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