We’ve all been there. You want to do a bit of spring-cleaning on our PC, but you forget to back up our Steam library - and data deletion disaster strikes!
It could happen to anyone - even the editor of a gaming tech website might accidentally delete 20 hours of Knights Of The Old Republic progress when he's trying to clean out his Mac. That's... um... not a hypothetical example.
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We thought we’d pass on the knowledge to you, to make sure you don't lose those valuable saves on your Steam Library; to back up what’s most important.
How to back up your Steam library
1. First of all, go to your Steam library, and go to the game that you want to backup the most, and right click.
2. A window will pop up with tabs towards the top, showing all the details of the game in question. Go to ‘Local Files’ and select ‘Backup Game Files’
3. The game you chose will already be ticked in this list, but if you wish, you can add more to backup at the same time. The total disk space required will give you a good idea as to how much free space you will need. Once you’re done, press Next.
4. The total space required will show, with a default directory chosen. If you do have a larger secondary hard drive, it will be best to create a folder, call it ‘Steam Backups’, and place the destination there.
5. An odd-throwback, but it will give you the option of splitting the files for DVD or CD-ROM disks. As this is going on a large hard drive, just leave it at ‘DVD’, and press ‘Next’.
6. Depending on the total file size, it could take between five minutes or an hour. Once done, you can go to the file destination in question, and it will be backed up!
There you have it - your favourite game is backed up. And if you accidentally delete it, like a certain Mr Rob Leane did, you will have a way of recovering your game-saves. If only he had read this article first...
Read more: How to transfer your Steam Library between hard drives