How to share Steam games (Guide)

A long time ago, before there was Steam or the internet, sharing and exchanging PC games among friends was a very common practice. Over time and digitalization this practice has disappeared a bit, but for some years Steam has been allowing you to share your personal library of digital games with friends and family through its special function called Family Sharing.

Activating Steam Family Sharing to share your game library with friends and loved ones is really simple, but before arriving at this fateful moment there is a small prerequisite: activate Steam Guard . In this guide, we'll walk you through step-by-step how to finally get to share the games in your Steam library, just make sure you have enough space on your PC or Steam Deck! (By the way, here's our recommendation for the best Micro SD cards for Steam Decks).

INDEX

Activate Steam Guard Activate family sharing Authorization method Access request method How to control access

How to activate Steam Guard to share games with friends and family

Steam Guard is an account protection feature that can be activated from the platform options. In addition to being a prerequisite for Family Sharing, Steam Guard also helps protect against unwanted logins and account theft through a mobile authenticator . So make sure you have a smartphone at hand where you can install the mobile app and follow these steps:

Open Steam on your PC and click on Steam at the top left; Select Settings from the drop-down menu; In the newly opened window, navigate to the Account section and press the Manage Steam Guard settings button; Follow the Steam Guard activation procedure. Now that you have activated Steam Guard, remember that every time you log in from a platform other than those where you have already registered access, you will need the code that will send you the Steam Guard application on mobile.

How do I turn on Steam Family Sharing?

Now that you've installed Steam Guard, it's time to switch to the Family Sharing feature. There are two ways to enable Steam Libraries sharing: authorize another user or request access from the owner. For each of the methods, carefully follow the steps we have indicated.

ATTENTION: as also indicated by the Steam Settings, you are allowed to share your Steam game library with a maximum of 5 other users.

Authorize family sharing of Steam games to another user

Open Steam on your PC and click on Steam at the top left; Select  Settings from the drop-down menu; In the newly opened window, navigate to the Family section and activate the "Allow sharing on this computer" check; After clicking on this check, exit Steam and log in with the account of the person with whom you want to share the games; Also log out of this account and log back into Steam with your personal user profile; Return to Settings and the Family section. Here, you should notice the account of your friend/family member you logged in with earlier in the bottom section; Tick ​​the account considered eligible for Steam Library Family Sharing. From now on, you should also see the member's games added to your Steam Library, separate from your game catalog.

Requesting access to the Steam game share from its owner

This method only works if there are games installed from another Steam account on your computer, and is therefore intended for households who live in the same house and with a single access to the PC. The steps to be able to share your library are as follows:

From your Library you can see other games owned by other accounts that use the same PC. Select one of these titles and click Play . Click on the Request Access button from the Steam window that has just opened. In this way an e-mail will be sent to the account of the user who owns the game. The owner of the game must click on the link that arrived in his email, allowing the sharing of his entire Library.

How to control access to Steam Family Sharing?

There may be several occasions when you want to stop sharing your Steam games with other people, or it could happen that you don't remember who you have allowed access to to your library. Thankfully Steam allows you to monitor every game sharing situation through its options. Follow these steps:



Open Steam on your PC and click on Steam at the top left. Select  Settings from the drop-down menu. In the newly opened window, navigate to the Family section and click on the Manage other computers link. This link is placed next to the sharing authorization tick. Here you can monitor and revoke account sharing access with PCs and users. You can also check individual games. For more information about family sharing and Steam Guard, we direct you to the platform's help page.