Steam – How to copy Steam game files from another PC while the game’s still downloading

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So I know (by trying it out) that you can copy Steam game files from one PC to another and make the game run with the copied files. This is a different issue than merely copying game files (which has been answered many times), because no answers I've found on here are applicable and will work:

Today I bought Borderlands 2, which my brother already has installed. When I tried to just copy the game files over to my PC, I noticed there was no Borderlands folder anywhere in SteamApps and its subdirectories, but only a folder called 49520 inside SteamApps\downloading.

So I tried just copying the game files to that folder while Steam was closed, started Steam again, and… nothing. It just went on downloading the game like there were no new files inside that folder.

Is there anything to do about this?

Best Answer

To copy Steam game files from another computer to save you having to download the full game, simply do the following;

  • Cancel the download on your machine and delete local files for the game
  • Close Steam on your computer
  • Copy the whole folder Borderlands 2 from your brother's PC into Steam\SteamApps\common
  • Delete the .exe since every user has it's own .exe if Steam DRM is used (what BL2 in fact does)
  • Tell Steam to download Borderlands 2 and it will discover the existing files
  • Verify files to get your own .exe and make sure nothing is corrupted
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