Reduce Steam installation folder size
Some notes before main question:
- My Steam games library is on separate location (another drive), and removing games is not a solution to this question.
- I have already tried out TikiOne Steam Cleaner, it didn't detect anything to delete in my Steam installation folder.
- I would rather not install Steam on my second drive.
So the main question is - can I somehow reduce Steam installation folder? I mean the one at:
.../Program Files (x86)/Steam
Now it is roughly 800 MB in size, and it's a real pain on my 120GB SSD drive, where each GB is worth it's weight in gold (metaphorically speaking).
I'm looking for unused update packages (maybe Steam doesn't delete them after update?), or other backups made by Steam without me even knowing. I also don't know where screenshots are kept, maybe this could be the solution?
Best Answer
You can delete the appcache folder every so often. This just contains data which is cached, it does however get re-downloaded when you restart steam, but the folder size is no where near as big. I freed up 200MBs by doing so, then the next time I launched steam, it became 1MB.
Another option is to right click the steam folder, click on the "Advanced" button and compress the contents of the folder and sub-folders.
Like sn0w had said, you should also delete redist files if you don't need them.
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How do I reduce the size of my Steam folder?
Another option is to right click the steam folder, click on the "Advanced" button and compress the contents of the folder and sub-folders. Like sn0w had said, you should also delete redist files if you don't need them.Why is Steam size so big?
From a quick look, Steam caches a lot of data like user data for each game and more. Big picture mode probably takes up some space too. Yep. It takes up space from the web browser cache too.Why is Steamapps folder so big?
Your Steam Apps folder is where most games from Steam install. For it to be that large, you must still have some games installed in your Steam Library. That, or while you had games installed previously you downloaded a ton of custom content for them (mods, maps, skins), because the custom content also resides in there.How do I change my Steam installation directory?
Navigate to your Steam client 'Settings' menu. Select 'Steam Library Folders' from the 'Downloads' tab. From here, you can view your default installation path, as well as creating a new path by selecting '+' button. Once you have created the new path, all future installations can be installed there.How to FIX Slow Download Speeds Steam Games (Fast Method!)
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Answer 2
You can reset steam installation as explained here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3134-TIAL-4638
Or use Tools like CCleaner (with CCEnhancer) or TikiOne Steam Cleaner as described here.
Answer 3
I haven't personally tried this with Steam, but I've used it for "moving" big files off my primary SSD to a big secondary drive.
You should be able to create a symbolic link. That will let you store the Steam folders on another hard drive while making it appear as if folder is where it needs to be for Steam. This gives you the best of both worlds. Steam thinks your files are where it wants, and you don't have those big files taking up excessive space on your 120 GB SSD.
For a little more information you can check out this answer on SuperUser.SE.
Answer 4
In addition to deleting your appcache folder, you can try a few other things.
One is running steam://flushconfig as described in this Steam knowledgebase article. If there's any cruft lying around in your steam install, this ought to clean it up.
You mentioned screenshots - they are indeed stored in a subfolder of the Steam install folder, specifically in something like:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\<your user id>\760\remote\<game id>\screenshots
There may be many, many megabytes worth of stuff in here, depending on how frequently you take screenshots. You can safely clean out whatever from this directory, and you could always symlink this directory to some other bulk storage drive if you want.
Finally, my go-to solution for finding large folders and files under Windows is WinDirStat. Point this at your SSD, and it will show you were all the large files are lurking. You can also drill down to your Steam folder and see what folders/files are taking up most of the room.
Answer 5
Your statement I would rather not install Steam on my second drive. is precisely what you should do to be honest.
There is no particular benefit of having Steam on your SSD C:\ drive.
If you disagree, please tell me why.
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