Hard drive space is a precious resource these days. As games require more and more space on our drives, it’s easy to find your storage suddenly maxed out. And when it happens, is it time to delete your games? Of course, not. There is a much better solution: install them on an external drive instead, freeing up your main drive for other things including more games.

Steam won't recognize that I have games installed on my external hard drive I own a one terabyte passport for mac external hard drive, and I installed Assassins Creed II on it. For about the first two days, I could play the game, but now Steam won't recognize that I have it installed.

• I am trying to install ESO on an external hard drive because I use a Mac Pro with very little storage. I currently have 891.14 GB free on the external drive, however, when changing the install directory in the setup, it does not recognize that I have free space and thus will not let me install.
• Dec 27, 2015  Yes. I do it on my Macbook Air. For Blizzard games I install both the launcher and games on the external. For Steam I found it worked better if Steam itself was installed on the internal drive and then creating a new Steam Library on the external and choosing it when installing games.

It may sound complicated to use an external drive to install your games, but the process is quite straightforward. In this guide, we will show you how to install games via Steam or Battle.net on an external hard drive.

Finding storage
Traditionally, you might think that it’s strictly laptops that need an external game library, (such as a 128GB-equipped MacBook Air). But even on my 1TB iMac, I find myself regularly running out of storage space since I deal with so many files and games at once. Since it is also recommended to keep a minimum of 10% of your HD free at all times, I have been keen to start installing my games on a drive other than my internal one.

Your first step toward more space is obtaining a suitable external drive for your needs. For best performance, you will want a USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt supported drive. A USB 2.0 drive can also work, but expect longer load times and other possible hits on playability.

Here are some drive recommendations to get you started:

• For desktop users looking to expand, the OWC Mercury Elite Pro is a great place to start.
• For laptop users, and gamers on the go, I recommend a “mini” drive, such as the OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini.
• If you have a larger budget, I’d suggest getting an SSD Thunderbolt drive. This will have nearly the same performance as your internal drive. The ultra rugged Lacie Thunderbolt or Mercury On-The-Go Pro is a great place to start.

Of course, you can use almost any drive you want to install your games externally, but these are reliable drives to get you started.

How to install via Steam
Installing games in a different location than default on Steam is easy. Here’s how it’s done:

Install Steam Games On Usb

• Plug in your external drive of choice and fire up Steam.
• In Steam Preferences > Downloads you can specify an alternate library folder. Just make a new folder named SteamLibrary on your external drive and choose it. You can toggle between default libraries by right clicking on the one you want to use and selecting the “Make default” option. Alternately, you can skip specifying a new library folder in Steam preferences and proceed straight to the install. It will give you an option to “Create a new Steam library” on your external drive.
• Select a game to install. In the popup menu, be sure to select your new location in the “Choose location for install” menu.
• Install your game as usual. Download speed will depend on upon your net connection.
• Open and play your game!

How to install via Battle.net Launcher
The setup for the Battle.net launcher to install games externally is just as simple as Steam.

• Launch the Battle.net app and select a game to install, such as Starcraft II.
• In the popup info box, select the “Change” button under “Install Location.”
• Navigate to your external drive and create a new folder named “Blizzard.” This can be named anything, but for ease of use this is recommended.
• It might take a bit longer to start installing than normal, but it will go soon enough.
• Enjoy your Blizzard games with more space!

If you are going to exclusively play Blizzard games on an external drive, you can change the default install directory in settings.

Just go to Settings > Game Install/Update and “Change” the default directory to one of your choosing. I recommend using the same “Blizzard” folder approach as mentioned before.

That’s it! You can now easily install your favorite games on external drives if you find yourself running out of room or simply want to keep your internal drive freed up for other apps and projects.

Let us know in the comments which games and hard drives that you use externally!

Related articles

Here we’ve gathered two reliable and free methods for you to try:

If you are a Steam lover and looking for a practical method to transfer your Steam and games to another new computer without reinstalling Steam, you are at the right place.

For Your Information:

1. Please log in your Steam account before starting or during the Steam transferring.
2. And if you want to keep your games at the same pace on the new PC, please sync all your Steam games record to the Cloud before you start.
3. You’ll need a powerful and free PC transfer software to help you move the Steam platform to the new PC without reinstallation in both two methods. EaseUS Todo PCTrans Free can easily do this job for you without any payment, and it’s available for you to download and install on both of your PCs:

Method 1. Transfer Steam to new PC and re-download games

# 1. Transfer Steam to new PC without reinstallation

Note: If you want to transfer more than two files or programs to another computer, please activate it first for further more transferring capacity:

Step 1. Run EaseUS Todo PCTrans on both PCs

On the source PC, select 'PC to PC' on the main screen of EaseUS Todo PCTrans and click 'Continue' to move on.

Step 2. Connect two computers

1. Select your target PC to connect via its IP address or device name and click 'Connect'.

2. Enter the login password of your target PC and click 'OK' to confirm.

If you didn't see the target PC in the listed devices, you can also click 'Add PC' to manually connect the target PC by inputting its IP address or device name.

3. Set the transfer direction - 'Transfer from this PC to other PC' and click 'OK' to continue.

Step 3. Select apps, programs, and software and transfer to the target computer

1. Click 'Edit' on the application section, then you can open up the application list.

Then you can select and choose what you want to transfer from the current computer to the target PC.

2. After selecting desired applications and programs, click 'Finish' to confirm.

At last, click 'Transfer' to start the transferring process.

# 2. Run Steam on new PC and re-download games

After transferring Steam to the new computer, you may now run Steam and re-download your purchased games on your new PC:

1. 1. Run Steam on the new computer and log in with your Account.
2. 2. Click on [name]’s Account > Account Details located on the top right corner of Steam
3. 3. Check your Licenses + Subscriptions or your Store Transactions

There you should be able to see a list of all the games you’ve purchased and you can re-download them again on your new PC.
And of course, it will take you some time to re-download all the games again, which is mostly based on the game size and the network condition.

If you prefer a more efficient method, read on and try Method 2 for help.

Method 2. Backup Steam games, transfer Steam and restore games to new PC

It’s more efficient and time-saving to back up and restore your Steam games from old PC to a new computer with below-provided tips:

Step 1. Backup Steam games to an external hard drive

1. First of all, you should log in with your Steam account on Steam on your old PC
2. Click on Steam and select 'Backup and Restore Games...'

3. Check 'Backup currently installed programs' and click 'NEXT>'

4. Select a game or multiple games you want to bring over to the new PC and click 'NEXT>' again.
If you select several games, they will be backed up and transferred at one time.

5. Click 'BROWSE...' to choose the exact location where you want to back up the selected games.

If you haven't connected your external hard drive to the computer, connect now and select it again.

And also, you should make sure that your external hard drive has enough space for saving the games.

6. Create a folder named as 'Steam Games' on the external hard drive, select the folder and click 'NEXT>'.

7. Choose 'Files size - CD or DVD' and click 'NEXT>'. Usually, DVD is recommended (since DVD will be quicker to compress).

Wait for the process to complete, and once done, click 'Finish'.
8. Unplug the external hard drive from your old PC.

Step 2. Transfer Steam from PC to PC

Instead of wasting time re-downloading Steam from its official site, EaseUS Todo PCTrans Free will be a more efficient choice.

The way to transfer Steam from PC to PC is the same as listed in Method 1. You can directly scroll back to Method 1 and follow the transferring guide there.

Step 3. Restore backups of Steam games to new PC

1. Connect the external hard drive with Steam games back up to the new PC and log in Steam with your account.
2. Open up the Steam platform on the new PC and select Steam > Backup and Restore Games... > Select 'Restore a previous backup' and click on 'NEXT>'.

Save Steam Games To External Hard Drive

3. Click 'BROWSE..' and select the folder on your external hard drive to find the Steam game backup, then click 'SELECT' > 'NEXT'.

4. Locate and choose a location where you want to restore the games on the new PC and click 'NEXT'.

5. Click 'I AGREE' to accept restoring games to the new PC and wait for the process complete.
6. Last, click 'Finish' when the process completes.
After that, you can be able to find and play transferred Steam games under Library.

Sometimes, if the games don't launch smoothly, restart the PC, and things will go all right.