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Steam - can I copy game files from one Mac to another?

A

Ack

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 15, 2009
61
0
Steam allows games to be installed on multiple computers as long as they're not both played at the same time. I'd like to get my Steam games installed on my laptop and on my desktop (both are Macs.) I have a somewhat slow Internet connection and I'd like to avoid downloading all of the games twice if possible.

Is there any way that I can download the Mac versions onto my desktop, then copy the game files from my desktop to my laptop and make Steam on my laptop recognize that I'm entitled to play them?

If so, how?
 
because of the way steam validates games you may have to re download the titles on each computer.

Reasonably speaking copying your ~/Documents/Steam Content folder should work and is worth a shot but its most likely that you will have to download the games again.

No worries though steam will not charge you for this EVER.
 
You can on Windows so you should be able to on the Mac. Just copy your ~/Documents/Steam Content/ folder to your other computer in the same location. It may verify the files on the new computer and may download a bit, but it's usually only a few meg. I've done this on the Windows side many times with no problems.
 
I haven't tried this yet but there's a Backup and Restore option in one of the menus. That might be the "official" way to do it.
 
Nermal said:
I haven't tried this yet but there's a Backup and Restore option in one of the menus. That might be the "official" way to do it.
Click to expand...

I'd recommend not using that. I used it for about 250GB of games on the Windows side and the restore completely failed. I checked the forums and people said that that's pretty much always been broken and never been fixed... so I had to redownload all 250GB...

This was one of those features that was implemented way back when, when bandwidth was a premium and backing up to CD was king. Unfortunately I don't think they've really done anything with it since.
 
In your documents folder there is a steam folder.
Copy the GCF files over to another mac. These are the file contents. Actual game data is small and steam handles that part.
 
SilentPanda said:
I'd recommend not using that. I used it for about 250GB of games on the Windows side and the restore completely failed. I checked the forums and people said that that's pretty much always been broken and never been fixed... so I had to redownload all 250GB...

This was one of those features that was implemented way back when, when bandwidth was a premium and backing up to CD was king. Unfortunately I don't think they've really done anything with it since.
Click to expand...
I've had nothing but sucess with my restorations from Steam backups.

It appears you can even use your game assests from Windows as well under OS X. You just need to download the OS X binaries after that.

Time Machine or just a simple backup of the Steam Contents folder should be enough for most people. Though I do enjoy being able to take my notebook to work where there's FIOS, backup a game, and install it on my tower at home.
 
Nermal said:
I haven't tried this yet but there's a Backup and Restore option in one of the menus. That might be the "official" way to do it.
Click to expand...

I just tried it, but it seems to be broken. On the second Mac I can't restore anything because I haven't installed a game on steam yet??? And on the original Mac that I installed Portal it can't find the backup when I try to restore it.
 
Worked great for Portal, Torchlight, and Loom. Thanks!

It's a lot faster to copy 5 GB over a 1Gbps LAN connection than to DL it through my ISP at 3mbps!
 
I asked Google this yesterday. Doesn't look like that method works any more in the newer versions of Steam. The backup feature is of no use either because there is no restore feature on Steam for Mac, but it doesn't work that well in the Windows version anyway...

I figured out to move games to another Mac without re-downloading you navigate to your home directory Library folder at ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/ then copy over the files containing the game's name over to the equivalent directory on your other Mac. When you get them copied over double click the game, Steam will check it and it will play.

Add my SteamID: whoarethepatriotsocelet

-Steveland Harris
 
VPrime said:
It still works...... The files are just no longer stored in the Documents directory.
Click to expand...

To move Left 4 Dead 2 from my MacBook Pro to my Mac Pro I moved:
~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/left 4 dead 2, moved over the 3 .ncf files too. Thought it would be useful to know.
 
Do copies work with different Steam Accounts?

I want to copy this to a laptop (MBP) but then log into Steam with a new account so I can play over LAN with a friend. I know I'll have to buy/gift a second license, but will I have to re-download the 11GB again or will it work if I register the game to that second account?

Sucks that the game went from $6 back to $20, if I'd realized it was going to do that I would have bought 2 right away, but it took me 2.5 days to download the first copy...
 
cant find steam content folder

I can't even find my Steam Content folder. It's not in my Documents folder, and a search to display all invisible files with the name "Steam Content" have failed. I've also tried to "Go" to Documents/Steam Content but that hasn't worked either.

Any ideas?
 
drunkenbozo3 said:
I can't even find my Steam Content folder. It's not in my Documents folder, and a search to display all invisible files with the name "Steam Content" have failed. I've also tried to "Go" to Documents/Steam Content but that hasn't worked either.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Go to /User/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps.

Or, if you're in Windows, it should be Computer/Local Disk/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps.
 
drunkenbozo3 said:
I can't even find my Steam Content folder. It's not in my Documents folder, and a search to display all invisible files with the name "Steam Content" have failed. I've also tried to "Go" to Documents/Steam Content but that hasn't worked either.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
It was moved in a later update but it's still in the user space and not in the system Library. Has anyone played with Steam on a multi-user Mac?
 
I have multiple accounts on both of my machines – Steam games are in the library folder of the user that you were logged into when you installed Steam.
 
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