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Do you install/uninstall a lot of your steam games?

A

Anony

Member
i just went into my *\steamapps\common dir and not to my surprise, i'm seeing a lot of folders of games i uninstalled
okay, so maybe the games left some save file in there so it would restore save if i happen to reinstall... nope
i go inside some of the folders and check, there's old exe, log files, installs files still there, among other stuff
some folders are completely empty, some has random left over stuff inside, ranging from a few mb to ~100 mb

biggest offender: tf2, whooping 2.4 gb, i look inside, custom maps and sounds
wtf: dota 2 beta folder -> 600mb, BUT, i never installed the beta, unless by beta, it was the actual pre-release beta, or it was just piggybacking the beta stuff into the actual release

probably cleared a few gbs of data after going through it

tl;dr: if u install and uninstall a lot of steam games (esp multiplayer games), i suggest you go to your steam install folder and actually deleting the files because the steam 'delete local content' sure isn't deleting everything
 
C

Calabi

Member
If you use an SSD then yeah you will(at least I do). I found out this a while ago that steam doesnt fully delete stuff.
 
B

balohna

Member
I bought a second HDD just for Steam, and I don't have anything else that's going to use up all that space... so I install everything I might want to play at some point in the near future. Just to prevent having to wait or whatever.
 
B

Bii

Member
Got a 1TB drive that's dedicated to games. So, no, I haven't had to uninstall any just yet.
 
R

Roto13

Member
I just took a peek and Braid was taking up 155mb. That's about it, though. Everything else was a handful of kb or less.
 
C

Commanche Raisin Toast

Member
240GB SSD owner here: yep, i only install what i'm going to actively play. games be big nowadays.

Calabi said:
If you use an SSD then yeah you will(at least I do). I found out this a while ago that steam doesnt fully delete stuff.
Click to expand...

care to elaborate? i've noticed my disk space being a bit suspicious. gaben's gonna have some 'splainin to do.
 
C

Calabi

Member
Commanche Raisin Toast said:
240GB SSD owner here: yep, i only install what i'm going to actively play. games be big nowadays.



care to elaborate? i've noticed my disk space being a bit suspicious. gaben's gonna have some 'splainin to do.
Click to expand...

Well for instance recently I uninstalled Skyrim, I've just checked the steam folder, its still there with about 1.37 GB of files(admittedly thats mostly mods).

Basically this.
http://tikione.fr/steamcleaner/en/
I havent used this software I just did it manually, you normally end up with video files and other things left over as well.
 
A

Awful Falafel

Banned
Calabi said:
Well for instance recently I uninstalled Skyrim, I've just checked the steam folder, its still there with about 1.37 GB of files(admittedly thats mostly mods).

Basically this.
http://tikione.fr/steamcleaner/en/
I havent used this software I just did it manually, you normally end up with video files and other things left over as well.
Click to expand...

Well that looks like it's only the redistributables that are left over so no big deal really.
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
I hate it when games (and many other pieces of software too) leave some remains in my HDD after uninstalling them. Like OP said, it's not even save files, which are usually in the My Documents folder (rendering it virtually unusable due to all the gaming-related stuff that gathers there, but that's another story), but actual game files that weren't removed for some unknown reason.
 
P

pa22word

Member
bacf10beb4a356da36966641a3134e02.png
 
G

Goldenhen

Member
Yes because I have 256GB SSD with installed all Blizzard games and FF14:ARR. But that's ok because the download will be count as unmetered.
 
I

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
HDD space is so cheap, so I have pretty much everything installed. Think I'm using nearly 2TB for games across all HDD.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
I somehow have install folders for games I've never owned or downloaded in my steam folder now that I'm checking (Dead Island).
 
D

Deepo

Member
Used to have a 4TB drive dedicated to Steam games, so didn't do much uninstalling. Now I'm only running two SSD drives to cut down on noise, so naturally I'm juggling games a lot more. I usually move most games to my NAS when I'm not playing them though, a lot faster than re-downloading them.
 
P

Portman

Member
I leave whatever I'm playing installed and otherwise I backup the games and store them on external hard drives for later. The only games that I don't backup are the ones I have on disc and I just reinstall those when needed.
 
J

JacksUsername

Member
After switching to SSD, I've cut back on my installed games count. I do use their backup utility and copy the files to an external hard drive. If I ever need to reinstall, I can use that utility as opposed to downloading the entire game again.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
I only uninstall games when I need space. Which isn't that often as Steam has its own drive and I don't play many games.
 
Mithos

Mithos

Member
Nope, and no other games either.

Origin folder: 31,9GB
Steam folder: 225GB
Ubisoft folder: 16,8GB
Games folder: 280GB (non steam/origin/ubisoft(uPlay) games, aka MMO's, GoG games etc etc)
 
A

Arthea

Member
JaseC said:
I only uninstall games when I need space. Which isn't that often as Steam has its own drive and I don't play many games.
Click to expand...

similarly, I only uninstall games that I finished, will never play one second more even if threatened with death or I need space. The last one didn't occur that often.
 
S

Salacious Crumb

Junior Member
I have a 2TB drive dedicated to Steam so I never really uninstall anything. I do use steamtool to temporarily move games that I'm currently playing to my SSD, and move them back to the HDD when I'm done.
 
S

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
I install and uninstall games with regularity, I see no reason to retain old games that I am done playing on my HDD.
 
T

The_Monk

Member
I try to not have many installed games because it made me easier to focus on my Backlog as well the titles I'm currently playing. When I'm done with a game I uninstall it and look at my currently installed games. If I'm not in the mood for any of them I install one and so on:

1UBHCtw.png


It works for me and there's still plenty of games on the Backlog to try and play.
 
Garou

Garou

Member
It's simple: People with unlimited internet = loaders, people with limited internet = hoarders.
 
J

jonno394

Member
I uninstall games when I finsih them and I don't expect to play them again for a while. My internet speed is super fast so my downloads don't take that long so I'm not fussed about having to redownload GB's of files if I wish to play again.

However, after reading this thread i will look through teh folders to make sure tehre aren't loads of crap hogging space (I only have one 1TB HDD atm)
 
J

Jazzkokehead

Member
I generally uninstall games once I finish them. Honestly, there are very few games that I find myself returning to immediately once I finish them - and some I never replay at all - so I find very little reason to keep them on my hard drive, other than to take up space. I actually really like Steam Cloud for this, because if there's a game I want to replay at a later point in time, I can delete it and then reinstall it without worrying about backing up saves manually.
 
styl3s

styl3s

Member
I have 2 1TB HDD's with most of my steam library on it and i only keep games i am currently playing installed because what's the point of having 400 games installed when you are only playing 1 of them? Takes all of 2 minutes to transfer a game over.
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Sakujou said:
Is that your hdd or your steam folder? If this is your steam folder.... Do you have installed every game available on steam or what is that???
Click to expand...
Haha, not even close. My Steam folder is a bit over 1.5 TB, with less than 700 games installed. Installing every available game will probably take a couple TB more.

Garou said:
It's simple: People with unlimited internet = loaders, people with limited internet = hoarders.
Click to expand...
Nah, I have unlimited internet and still install pretty much everything I'm remotely interested in due to convenience. Don't want to have to wait in the unlikely chance I ever want to play a specific game.
 
M

Mr. Luchador

Member
I used to have loads installed, but then they'd update all the time which was becoming annoying. So I only have my favourites and what I'm going to play installed now.
 
Z

Zia

Member
I keep the games I'm always playing (TF2, CS: GO, Dota 2, Spelunky, Nidhogg) as well as my all-time favorites that I might not touch anytime soon (Braid, Fez, Bastion, Half-Life 2, Gone Home and more) installed and everything else gets downloaded then deleted, downloaded then deleted.

The only issue with that is that sometimes I'll have a craving for something like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed or M&B: Warband, then I'll reinstall the game and the moment will have passed. Whereas if I'd had it on my HD, I probably would've sunk my teeth into it.
 
B

Brainiac 8

Member
So far, I uninstall any game that I feel I'm finished with.

The chances of me going back to them are slim. I only keep them if it is a game that I really like or I play a lot of multiplayer with.
 
O

OuiOuiBa

Member
Anony said:
tl;dr: if u install and uninstall a lot of steam games (esp multiplayer games), i suggest you go to your steam install folder and actually deleting the files because the steam 'delete local content' sure isn't deleting everything
Click to expand...
Unfortunately this is a problem for most programs (at least on Windows), not only games.
Please note that there exist overzealous games: IIRC Arcanum deletes all game saves when uninstalling. Better make a backup first hand !!
 
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