Running low on space on your primary drive? Whether you’re consolidating your entire library onto a single fast SSD or freeing up room for a new batch of Steam sales, moving Steam games to another drive is one of the most satisfying storage chores you can tackle. The good news is that Steam ships with a built-in tool that transfers your installed games from one drive to another without re-downloading them, so you can keep playing without burning hours on a slow connection.
There are two ways to do this. The first is Steam’s own “Drive Migration” feature, which handles everything for you and is the method most people should use. The second is a manual copy-and-verify approach that works as a fallback if the built-in tool acts up or your game isn’t showing up in the list. Both methods keep your game files intact, so let’s walk through them step by step.
Before You Start: Make sure the destination drive is plugged in and recognized by Windows (for external drives, give it a moment to spin up). Confirm the new drive has at least as much free space as the largest game you intend to move, since Steam copies the full installation. If you’re on a laptop running on battery, plug it in—transferring a 100 GB game on a fading battery is a great way to interrupt the process. Finally, keep Steam running and logged in throughout, because the move is tied to your library.
Method 1: Steam’s Built-in Drive Migration
Step 1: Open Steam and make sure you’re logged in
Launch the Steam client on your desktop and sign into the account that owns the games you want to move. The migration tool lives inside the client, so a browser-only session or a fresh logout can leave you staring at a “not installed” error later. If you have two-factor authentication enabled, log in ahead of time so you’re not locked out mid-transfer.
Step 2: Open the Settings menu
From the top-left corner of the client, click Steam in the menu bar, then choose Settings from the dropdown. On Windows 11, this opens a clean new window rather than the older dialog. Look for the small gear icon if the menu feels unfamiliar—either route lands you in the same place.
Step 3: Select the Download section
In the left sidebar of the Settings window, click Download. This is the page that controls where your games install and how Steam manages its library folders. You’ll see a section titled “Steam Drive Migration” further down the page, which is the feature you actually want.
Step 4: Click Steam Drive Migration
Scroll down to the Steam Drive Migration area and press the Drive Migration button. Steam will scan every library folder it can see—including your main C: drive and any secondary or external drives—and list them as selectable options. If your new drive doesn’t appear here, skip to the Troubleshooting section at the bottom.
Step 5: Pick the game you want to move
A window opens showing all of your installed games with their current size and source drive. Use the search box or scroll to find the specific title you’re relocating. You can often move several games at once if they share the same source drive, which saves you from repeating these steps.
Step 6: Choose the destination drive
Next to the selected game, use the dropdown to pick the new drive as the destination. Steam shows the available free space on that drive so you can confirm it will fit. Double-check the destination, because sending a 120 GB game to a nearly full drive is how people end up with a half-moved installation.
Step 7: Confirm and let Steam do the work
Press Move and Steam begins copying the files in the background. You’ll see a progress bar and an estimated time, which depends on your drive speeds—an SSD-to-SSD transfer flies, while an older HDD or a flaky USB drive can take much longer. Your game stays playable or pauses depending on whether it was running, so close it first if it was active.
Method 2: Manual Copy and Verify (Fallback)
If the built-in tool is finicky or a game is missing from the list, you can move files by hand. This takes more effort, but it gets the job done and keeps your progress and settings intact.
Step 8: Locate the game folder on its current drive
In Steam, right-click the game in your Library and choose Manage → Browse local files. This opens File Explorer directly to the game’s folder inside steamapps\common. Note the exact folder name, since some games use a shortened or oddly named directory that can confuse the copy step.
Step 9: Copy the files to the new drive
Highlight the game folder, press Ctrl+C to copy it, navigate to the new drive’s steamapps\common folder, and press Ctrl+V to paste. If that folder doesn’t exist yet, create it manually with those exact names—Steam looks for steamapps\common specifically. Right-click and choose “Copy” if the keyboard shortcut feels finicky on your keyboard.
Step 10: Tell Steam the game moved
Back in the client, right-click the game again and choose Properties → Installed Files, then press Verify. Steam scans the copied files, matches them against its servers, and marks the game as installed on the new drive. This step can take a few minutes for large games, so be patient rather than force-closing it.
Step 11: Free up the old location
Once verification confirms the move, you can delete the original folder from the old drive to reclaim the space. Do this only after Steam shows the game as installed on the new drive, otherwise you risk deleting a working copy before it’s been relocated.
Pro Tip: Create a dedicated Steam library folder on your fastest drive and point Steam at it for future installs. Go to Settings → Download → Drive Migration and click Add Drive to register a new folder, so you never have to hunt for install locations again.
Troubleshooting
The Drive Migration option is missing or the game isn’t listed. This usually means the game is already installed on the destination drive, or Steam hasn’t recognized the new library folder yet. Click Add Drive in the Download settings to register the destination first, then retry the move. Games that are only partially installed sometimes won’t appear, so finish or cancel the current install before moving.
The move finishes but Steam says the game needs verification. After a built-in transfer, Steam occasionally flags files for a quick re-check. Press Verify Installed Files in the game’s Properties, which is fast and harmless—it just confirms the copied files match Steam’s records. If it demands a full re-download instead, the transfer likely got interrupted; let it finish or repeat the move.
The transfer is painfully slow or errors out. Check both drives’ health and connection type—an external USB 2.0 drive will move a fraction as fast as a built-in NVMe SSD. Close background apps hogging your disk and network, and make sure the destination isn’t nearly full. If it drops repeatedly, switch to the manual copy method from Method 2.
Final Tips
Use the built-in migration tool whenever it works, since it avoids the small risks of a manual copy. Always verify after a manual transfer before deleting the original folder. Consider keeping your most-played games on the fastest drive and less-titled ones on a larger, slower one to balance speed and space. And remember that moving a game never touches your saves or achievements, which sync to Steam Cloud regardless of which drive the files live on.
What about you—have you tried moving Steam games to another drive, and did the built-in tool or the manual method work better for you? Let us know in the comments.
Over to you: Did the built-in migration tool or the manual method work better for you?
