Running out of space on your C: drive because of Steam games? Steam lets you choose any drive or partition as your download and install location. This tutorial shows you how to change the default Steam download/install folder in Windows 10 and Windows 11.
By default, Steam installs games on your C: drive. While this works fine initially, the problem is your C: drive fills up fast, especially with modern AAA titles easily hitting 50GB to 100GB (and sometimes even more!). This can result in low disk space warnings and other issues. Thankfully, you can easily change the default download and install location for Steam games. This lets you dedicate a separate drive (or multiple drives) to your games. For example, I usually use my F: drive for game installations. Another advantage of using a separate drive is that even if you reinstall Windows, you don’t have to redownload all your games. Simply pointing Steam to your game drive takes care of it.
In this quick and simple tutorial, I will show you the steps to quickly change the default Steam download and install directory. Let’s get started.
Good to know: How to free up space in Windows
Steps to Change Steam Download/Install Location
To change the default download directory in Steam, follow the below steps:
- Open the Steam application.
- Click the “Steam” > “Settings” option on the top bar.
- Go to the “Storage” tab on the sidebar.
- Click the top dropdown menu on the right panel.
- Select “Add Drive“.
- Select the drive from the dropdown menu and click “Add“.
- Ensure the new drive is selected in the dropdown menu.
- Click the “Settings” icon (three horizontal dots) under it.
- Select the “Make Default” option.
- With that, you’ve changed the default download/install location in Steam.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, open the Steam application. To do that, press the “Windows” button on the taskbar, search for “Steam”, and click “Open”. Once it opens, click the “Steam” option on the top bar and select the “Settings” option.
In the Settings window, go to the “Storage” tab. On the right panel, click the top dropdown menu and click the “Add Drive” option.
Select the drive of your choice from the dropdown menu and click the “Add” button.
Note: If you want to select a specific folder in a drive, select “Let me choose another location”, click “Add”, choose a folder of your choice, and click “Select Folder”.
Once the drive is added, ensure it is selected in the top dropdown menu, click the “Settings” icon (three horizontal dots), and select the “Make Default” option.
With that, the selected drive is now the default download/install location. That means, anytime you install a new game, Steam will automatically download it to this new drive. You will see a small golden star next to the drive name once you make it the default.
If you want to remove a drive in Steam, select it from the top dropdown in the “Storage” panel, click the “Settings” icon (three horizontal dots), and select “Remove drive“. Click “Confirm” when prompted.
Wrapping Up: Changing Default Download Location in Steam
So, there you have it! Changing your default Steam download location is a simple way to free up space on your C: drive or dedicate a separate drive to your game library. Once selected, Steam will install any new game in that directory. If you did not set any default folder, Steam will prompt you to choose the download/install directory every time you try to install a new game, in the case of multiple library folders.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist. In the meantime, here are a couple of tutorials on Steam that can help you:
- How to add non-steam games to Steam
- How to create a desktop shortcut for Steam games
- How to disable Steam auto start on Windows
- How to delay Steam client startup in Windows
- How to show FPS counter in any game using Steam
- How to limit Steam download speed
- How to enable Steam LITE to reduce Steam client’s RAM usage
Update: The tutorial is updated to reflect the changes in Steam’s UI and functionality.
tried to follow directions. do you need to install another hard drive on computer?
You don’t have to install a new drive. Just select a folder in a different partition (like C drive, D drive, E drive, etc..,).
This is so confusing. your guide is “to change folder”, not partition. Anyone that googles this is wanna know how to change install folder in same partition.