Can I put games in a USB stick to play them instead of using the cloud service?
Can I put games in a USB stick to play them instead of using the cloud service?
I have a bunch of digital games that are so big, they take up many terabytes. I want to use USB drives as temporary storage for my games before transferring them to my SSD. Instead of using an internet connection, I'll just drag and drop the files into specific folders on the drive and pull them out when I need them. Alternatively, I could just copy or delete what I don't need right away. While a bigger hard drive would be cool if I didn't already have those USB drives, my current storage is enough for now. Even faster data speeds from the USB drives are worth it to me. I'm mostly worried about losing all my games and having Epic or Steam force me to download everything again anyway.
It's not simply dragging things around. It needs a bit more work. Steam actually knows how to handle moving game files. Here is how you do it: right-click on your Game Properties, then hit Local Files. Finally, choose "Move Install Folder."
For some game launchers, you can move your game files away while they aren't running. When you start up the next time, the launcher checks if the games are actually there and marks them as "uninstalled." I tested this with Origin, Epic Games Store, and GOG Galaxy. With Origin and Epic Games Store, if a game was installed before but is now missing from your library folder, it will ask you to reinstall when you try to launch it again. However, GOG Galaxy still flagged the games as uninstalled. In Steam, you can move files out too, but every game has an appmanifest file that says "I'm installed." Unless you figure out which specific file belongs to which game and delete it, it will keep showing up in your library as installed. No matter what, for most game launchers, if the files are in their library path and you try to install a game, they will usually find them there, do some checks, download whatever is missing or needs updating, and then let you play normally. short version: yes, you can move your files around for storage, and almost all game launchers will realize the games aren't there on their next start. The main difference is Steam because it has a different file. You just need to move that special file back when you want to play again, and when you hit install, the launcher will see it's right here.