10 Life Hacks Every Steam Player Should Know
If Steam is one of your favorite gaming apps, you probably don’t spend much time using it—you’re more likely to just jump right into the action. However, if you take a few minutes to explore the settings and features, you’ll discover a wealth of options. From remapping gamepad controls to launching games with custom restrictions, here’s what’s available. (Note: The tips below are based on the current version of the Steam client for Windows, but you should find similar capabilities in other Steam apps.)
Conduct a privacy audit to prevent third parties from gaining information about your gaming habits.
You should pay attention to your privacy on Steam, as well as in any other application or platform you use. In particular, your Steam profile may or may not disclose information about you to the public.
Click Steam > Settings > Account, then “Privacy Settings” to audit your account and make any necessary changes. For example, your profile may contain information about your purchased and wishlisted games, as well as your friends on the platform. Most settings can be set to “Public,” “Private,” or “Friends Only.” There’s also a setting for controlling who can comment on your profile.
Create a Steam Family to share games with others.
Steam has a built-in Family Sharing feature, so games you purchase can be shared with up to five other people in your household (which, in most cases, means using the same IP address).
To get started, open Steam > Settings > Family , then select “Create or Join a Steam Family.” If you’re the head of the family group, you’ll need to name it and send out invitations, after which you can manage who is allowed into the group. You can play multiple games from your library at once, but two family members cannot play the same game at the same time.
In addition to giving your loved ones access to your games without having to pay for them, it’s also an effective way to add parental controls for your children: you can control which games are available to which family members, as well as set playtime limits.
Run commands to customize your games.
If you right-click a game in your Steam library and select Properties > General , you’ll see the Launch Options window, which allows you to add command-line statements to the selected game’s executable. For those unfamiliar with the command line, these are specific additional instructions that tell the game how to behave or enable or disable certain features. These can be helpful for troubleshooting game issues and customizing it to your needs.
Available options cover everything from forcing windowed mode and skipping intro videos to saving voice chat logs and disabling GPU features. Compatibility varies by game, but a full list can be found here .
Add the ability to strategically move your games to another location.
You don’t have to store all your games in one place on your system. For example, you may have a faster SSD drive but limited space. You can move selected games for which speed is most important to that drive, while leaving the rest where they are.
First, you’ll need to create an alternative location on your system. Go to Steam > Settings > Storage , click the drop-down menu at the top, and then select Add Drive . Once the alternative location is created, you can move the game from your library by right-clicking it and selecting Properties > Installed Files . Select Move Installation Folder , and you’ll be able to choose a different location.
Limit your download speed to ensure smooth internet access.
You don’t necessarily need Steam to download games and updates at maximum speed every time, especially if you’re trying to enjoy high-quality 4K video streaming in the next room.
Select Steam > Settings > Downloads, and you’ll see a variety of options for managing file transfer speeds. Toggle “Limit download speed ” to set a limit in kbps—this is handy if you don’t need fast game updates but need the internet for other tasks.
Switch to another server if yours is not working properly.
When it comes to downloads and upload speeds, by default, Steam connects you to the server closest to your location for data transfer. In most cases, this will provide you with the fastest download and upload speeds.
However, this isn’t always guaranteed: if your default region is heavily congested, you may find that connecting from a more distant region will provide faster speeds. Go to Steam > Settings > Downloads , and at the top you’ll find the option to select a download region .
Use Big Picture mode to navigate Steam using a gamepad.
Any gamepad-compatible Steam game will work without issue once the controller is connected, but what about the Steam interface itself? Switching between gamepad and keyboard when launching and exiting games is not particularly convenient. The solution is to run Steam in Big Picture mode, designed for using Steam on a TV. This not only makes the interface simpler and more suitable for larger screens, but also significantly simplifies using a gamepad.
In Steam > Settings , select “Interface,” then enable “Launch Steam in Big Picture Mode” to use this interface by default. You can also switch between Big Picture Mode and regular mode using Alt+Enter , the menu button on your controller, or the Big Picture Mode icon in the upper-right corner of the client interface (to the left of the minimize button).
Remap the gamepad control buttons.
For gamepads, by right-clicking any game in your library and selecting Properties > Controller > Controller Configuration , you can change the default settings to use buttons and joysticks—or even force a gamepad to work with a game that doesn’t natively support it.
That’s not all: if you select “View Configurations” on the key mapping screen, you can use any of the configurations suggested by the Steam community for your chosen game. A custom configuration could give you an advantage in your next gaming session.
Use SteamDB to get information about future sales on Steam.
Speaking of external Steam resources that you should definitely check out, I’d like to point you to SteamDB – as the name suggests, it’s a database of all the games currently available on Steam.
In the Steam catalog, you can not only discover new, popular, and trending games but also receive updates on upcoming releases and the latest patches, as well as quickly calculate how much you’ve spent on Steam over the years. Perhaps most importantly, you can get predictions for the next Steam sale (based on historical data) and explore current sales in detail, including discount sizes, release dates, genres, and more.
Use the FPS counter to monitor your PC’s performance.
Monitoring your FPS in real time will help you ensure your gaming hardware is working properly, and is also useful for diagnosing issues—if you suspect you’re experiencing frame drops, this will confirm the problem.
Steam has its own basic FPS display setting: select Steam , then “Settings,” then “In-Game.” Here you’ll find the “Show Performance Monitor” option, which lets you choose where the overlay appears on the screen. The options below on the same screen let you choose what else to display besides FPS: you can also display CPU, GPU, and RAM usage statistics.