With and so many neat games on Steam, it would brand sense to take the ability to share them with other friends or family. Thankfully, Steam does have this pick, and at that place are a few ways you can do it. To make sure it works, though, you'll accept to follow a specific process.

Your games tin can be shared across multiple devices and accounts, making it easy to let friends or family admission to your library. If you follow the steps and tips outlined beneath, you should have library sharing set up in no time and your friends can go to playing your games on their accounts.

How to Prepare Library Sharing

To share games on Steam, you'll first want to make sure you know your username and password, and that you have admission to your friend'southward or family member's computer that they utilise to log into their own account. This volition ensure that they can play your games on their device. Follow these steps to share your games.

  1. Open the Steam desktop app and log into your own account.
  1. Become to Steam > Settings > Family.
  1. Brand sure Qualify Library Sharing on this computer is checked.
  1. Log out of your account, and have the other person log dorsum into their own Steam account. They should now be able to play any games that are available for sharing from your library.

By sharing your games this style, you lot can qualify upwards to 10 different devices for Library Sharing and can share games with up to five different accounts. In one case authorized, they tin can download games from your library onto their computer.

Requesting Access to a Game Library

If you lot're sharing a computer and using multiple Steam accounts, you may see games from the other's account on the list of Steam games. If you want to asking access to games from another account, there's an easy way to practice so.

  1. On your account, notice a game from another account'south library on Steam and select it, then click Play.
  1. An email will be sent to the owner of the game requesting admission to their library.
  1. Accept the possessor click on the link to authorize access to their game library on your calculator. Once they've done this, you should be able to download and play their games.

Enabling Steam Guard

If you're going to be sharing games with others through your account, you'll want to make sure your account is protected beforehand. Steam Guard is a service y'all can turn on within your account to ensure everything stays secure. Earlier logging into your account on other devices or sharing your Steam library, you'll desire to turn this on.

  1. Brand sure you're logged into your Steam account on the Steam desktop app.
  1. Click on your username and go to Account Details > Manage Steam Guard.
  1. Choose whether you lot want Steam Baby-sit codes sent to you by phone or email. This is for ii-factor authentication and will let you to go along your account secure.

If you lot've already authorized your account on another device, you besides have the ability to deauthorize information technology on any other device besides the one yous're currently using information technology on. This is a handy tool if yous always want to revoke Library Sharing on other devices.

Tips for Steam Library Sharing

When using Library Sharing to share games on Steam, there are a few things you'll desire to keep in mind in social club to make certain the sharing works smoothly and to limit issues.

  • You'll need to be connected to the internet in order to admission whatsoever shared games from others accounts.
  • Some games may exist unavailable for sharing. This could exist due to the game needing a subscription or 3rd-party account for information technology to exist played.
  • Two users can't be playing the aforementioned game at the aforementioned time. In the issue that two users try to play one game, the principal account that owns the game volition go priority in playing the game. The other user will exist prompted to either buy or exit the game.
  • You tin can't share only specific games, the entire library has to exist shared to other accounts.
  • An account playing a shared game they don't own will also take access to whatsoever DLC bought by the primary game owner, but the guest player tin can't buy DLC for a game they don't already own.
  • Region-restricted content can't exist shared to outside regions.

Why Isn't Library Sharing Working?

Steam'south Library Sharing feature is known to take some issues, then it'due south entirely possible y'all may be having trouble getting it to work. However, there are some fixes you can endeavour in gild to resolve this and get your games working across other devices.

Reauthorize a Device

One method that may fix an issue when trying to share games on steam is to log into a previously authorized device on the primary sharing account, deauthorize the device, then log dorsum out. So, have the other person log into their account and go to play the game. They will then have to request admission for the game over again. Follow the steps above for requesting game access in order to reauthorize the device.

Disable Antivirus Software

If the authorized device is running antivirus software, it'due south possible it may be preventing an account from playing a new game. So to fix this, you can disable the antivirus software. So, verify the integrity of the game by going to it in the Steam library, right-clicking it and selecting Properties > Local Files > Verify Integrity of Game Cache.

This will ensure that the game is prophylactic to play on the estimator and the antivirus software will not prevent yous from playing the game.

Relocate Steam Files

Another set up to try is changing the location of Steam's files. To do this, go to the Steam installation binder on your PC. Then delete all files except for SteamApps, Userdata, and Steam.exe. Then re-create and paste the installation binder into a new location.

Now, open the Steam app and log into your account, and attempt to access the game you want to play.

Make Certain In that location Are No Other Problems

Remember that multiple people tin't be playing ane game at the same fourth dimension, and besides that certain games you may just be unable to play at all. Be sure to dominion out these limitations before trying any other fixes.

Sharing Your Steam Library

Library Sharing is a great fashion to allow your friends and family to play your favorite games. If you follow all the steps to a higher place, you should be able to get it working in no time. This eliminates the need to buy a game multiple times on 1 device in order to play information technology, and you can help friends out by sharing a game on Steam they may be wanting to play.