Maybe you aren't playing a particular game as much, or you need to free up disk space. Games can take up a lot of room, especially when you’ve got several alongside apps, documents, videos and files. In this article, we cover how to uninstall Steam games on a Mac, which is a little more tricky than dragging it to the trash.
Uninstalling Steam games involves going through the application itself, which will delete the game on your Mac. However, you will still own the game (it will remain in your Steam account) but to play it again you will need to download it.
How to uninstall Steam?
Steam isn’t a very lightweight app. It usually takes a lot of space and may be responsible for your Mac running slower than it should. In case you want to quit Steam for good, we will help you to uninstall it.
- Quit Steam.
- Open Finder and go to Applications.
- Locate Steam and drag it to the Bin.
- In Finder, press Command + Shift + G.
- Type
~/Library/Application Support/and click Go. - Locate Steam and open it.
- In the folder, remove everything except “steamapps” file to keep your Steam games.
- Empty the Bin.
Although you removed the app and some of its files from your Mac, the leftover items may still be left. To search for the remaining data, press Command + Shift + G to open Finder’s Go to the folder menu. Type these paths in the form and look for files that have “steam” or “valve” in their names:
~/Library/Logs/…
~/Library/Caches/…
Before starting to uninstall Steam you should completely close the application since it may complicate the process. Right-click the Steam icon on DockPanel and choose Quit option. Deleting Steam games is more difficult than uninstalling regular Mac programs, because they are not stored in the program folder. But everything is not too complicated. To remove the game from Steam, you need to open the program itself.
~/Library/Cookies/…
Before starting to uninstall Steam you should completely close the application since it may complicate the process. Right-click the Steam icon on DockPanel and choose Quit option.
~/Library/Preferences/…
~/Library/LaunchAgents/…
~/Library/Saved Application State/…
Once you find such files, move them to the Bin. All Steam-related files are now deleted.
There is another, quicker way to remove Steam. Using CleanMyMac X, an app cleaner notarized by Apple, you can delete the app and its associated files altogether. If you install CleanMyMac X, it will remind you to remove app leftovers when you drag the app to Bin. That’s how it looks:
You can then click Open CleanMyMac and remove remaining files using the Leftover tab in Uninstaller module. Move to the next step to find out how to delete Steam games on Mac.
How to uninstall Steam games manually
1. Open the Steam application — either in your Dock, Desktop or Applications folder.
2. Go to the Library tab in the app. Here you should see every game you've downloaded and bought through Steam.
3. Now, right-click (or press Control and Click) on the game you want to uninstall from your Mac. A drop-down of options should appear.
4. Click Uninstall.
5. Steam will ask if you’re certain you want to delete it, confirming that it will uninstall the local game files from your Mac.
6. Click Delete and wait a few minutes for the game to be removed.
Larger Steam games will take a little longer to uninstall. It will show you an uninstalling message alongside the game title in your library until it’s complete. Once that is done, if you check disk space it should show you’ve got more than you had before. Repeat the process if you want to free up even more space, or simply remove a few more distractions from your Mac.
Or maybe you want to take this distraction purge one step further. Perhaps it’s time to remove Steam from your Mac entirely. There are two ways you can do this.
You might be wondering: can you uninstall Steam without losing games? Thankfully, no, all of your games will remain in your Steam account and on your Mac, so this method won’t free up much space. However, it does mean you can re-download the app again when you are ready.
Removing every Steam game, the local files and associated data, means going through steps 1 to 6 again, and then deleting the app from your Mac. Freeing up space you need and removing some enjoyable but time-consuming distractions.
Whichever option you chose, your games will stay in the Steam library, which is good for those worried that if I uninstall Steam what happens to my games? They’re all still in the library, so if you want to download any of them and play again, you’ve not lost anything.
How to uninstall Steam games on Mac without Steam
If you have already said goodbye to Steam, but have found some of Steam games on your Mac, you can delete those too. Removing Steam games is much easier, with a special Uninstaller module of CleanMyMac X. With its help you can uninstall Steam games in a few clicks, regardless you have Steam installed on your Mac or not. Just follow these steps:
- Download CleanMyMac X for free and launch the app.
- Go to the Uninstaller tab.
- Choose the games you want to delete.
- Click Uninstall.
You can as well delete Steam using CleanMyMac X's Uninstaller. Here's how it looks like:
Say you’ve deleted unneeded Steam games, or even cleared out your entire Steam library, and you still need more space. This storage issue could be a sign that your Mac needs a cleanup.
CleanMyMac X will help you with that. Just click the Scan button and the app will find all useless files you can safely remove. Most Mac users find over 74GB of junk when they run the program. Your Mac will run faster too, so you can enjoy an enhanced gaming experience.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
Steam is the most well-known game platform on which you can download thousands of games. However, some people feel that playing games on Steam takes too much time and downloading games takes up too much computer space. So this article tells you how to uninstall Steam on your Windows PC and Mac.
Contents:
What Happens if I Uninstall Steam? Will Uninstalling Steam Remove my Games?
If you delete Steam from your computer, it will delete all files related to your steam such as steam games, game maps, and some game configuration files. In this way, when you reinstall Steam, you need to download the game again, re-personalize the game settings, and do on, which will take a lot of time.
So if you decide to reinstall Steam afterwards, you can back up Steam games before uninstalling it.
Related: How to Fix Steam Content File Locked
3 Ways to Uninstall Steam on Windows Computer
It is very easy to uninstall an application on a Windows computer. You can use the Windows built-in uninstaller to uninstall Steam or use a professional third-party uninstalling software such as IObit Uninstaller to help you uninstall Steam and clean up its residual files.
Before uninstalling Steam, you should consider backing up Steam games and other Steam files in case you wanted to return to Steam.
Uninstall Steam in Windows Control Panel
1. Close Steam on your desktop.
2. Go to Control Panel >Programs and Features. Here you should set the control panel View Category as Small Icons.
3. Find Steam, and double click to uninstall it. You can also right click it and select Uninstall. Then follow the uninstallation wizard to uninstall this application.
If there are other programs related to Steam, uninstall them one by one.
In Windows 10, you can also use the Apps & Features option to uninstall Steam.
Locate Start >Settings >Apps >Apps & features >Steam >Uninstall.
Tips:
If uninstalling Steam failed in this way, it may be due to file conflicts or other reasons, but your Steam file has been damaged. In this case, if you want to continue uninstalling Steam, you may first be required to download and install Steam to repair the installation. The new files will overwrite the old files before you can uninstall them.
Uninstalling Steam with IObit Uninstaller
Except Control Panel, there are a lot of third-party software that can be used to uninstall Steam. Here use IObit Uninstaller as an example.
IObit Uninstaller is a very powerful Windows uninstall software. It can help you automatically uninstall Windows Apps, third-party programs, and clean leftovers automatically. With this software, you can also uninstall Toolbars and Plugins which are installed on your Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, etc.
1. Download, install and run IObit Uninstaller on your computer.
2. In the Programs list, select Steam and then click Delete icon.
3. Click Uninstall. Here IObit Uninstaller starts automatically to remove residual files. And if you want to create a restores point, you can check the first checkbox.
Follow the uninstallation guide to uninstall Steam step by step.
How to Uninstall Steam on Registry Editor
If you are proficient in fixing computer problems, you can use the Registry Editor to delete Steam. But when you operate in the Registry Editor, you need to be very careful to avoid deleting or modifying other files accidentally, thus causing system problems.
1. Exit Steam.
2. Go to the Steam directory on your computer, which is normally located in C:Program FilesSteamor C:Program FilesValveSteam.
3. Delete all of the contents of your Steam directory.
4. Type Regedit in the search box to open the Registry Editor.
5. For the 64-bit operating system, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeValve.
For operating systems on 32-bit , you should go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREValve.
Here if you do not know if your system is 32bit or 64bit, you can view this tutorial: how to check computer specs on Windows 10, 8, 7.
6. Right click Valve and select Delete to uninstall Steam.
7. Close your Registry Editor.
Related: How to Fix Steam Missing File Privileges
How to Uninstall Steam on Mac
It is slightly different in uninstalling Steam on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or other Mac products than that on Windows systems or other programs on Mac products. The following part will tell you how to uninstall Steam on a Mac computer.
1. Close Steam.
2. Go to Finder >Applications >Steam App.
3. Right click Steam.app and select Move to Trash or directly drag it to the Trash. Remember that it will not fully uninstall Steam on Mac, so you should follow next steps to continue uninstalling it.
4. On the Mac desktop, click Go >Go to Folder.
5. Then type~/Library in the search box and click the Go
6. In the Application Support, find the Steam folder.
7. If you want to remove all the Steam files including Steam games, you can delete the whole Steam folder.
And if you want to keep the Steam games, you can delete all folders except the SteamApps folder.
8. Empty the Trash by selecting Finder ->Empty Trash.
How to Reinstall Steam on Windows and Mac
For someone want to reinstall the Steam again after uninstall it on Windows and Mac.
1. Goes to here: https://store.steampowered.com/about/
2. Click Install Steam. Here you can download Steam on Windows and Mac platform.
3. Once the Steam downloaded, open the Steam and follow the installation instructions to install Steam to your Windows and Mac computer.
Conclusion:
As a popular game platform, Steam is very user-friendly, which is why so many users choose to use it. If you don’t want to use it anymore, you can uninstall it easily. And Steam also provides a backup function to help you save time during reinstallation. After you reinstall it, just import the original game backup file to enjoy games with PC again.