How To Uninstall Steam From PC, Mac, and Ubuntu

Steam is a gaming platform that lets you purchase and update games within its interface and, most interestingly, save your purchase in the accounts After the Steam Remote Play feature its popularity has increase manifolds. Like other programs on Windows and Mac, Steam can be uninstalled in several ways.

The Steam uninstallation process is different from other programs as it behaves like an emulator. In simple words, it stores other programs (games), and you can download more and more games through it. So uninstalling Steam can remove these games from your desktop PC.

However, it is worth noting that uninstalling Steam from the PC does not delete the games and user data from the Steam servers. You can re-download games from Steam servers by again installing the Steam application on your PC. Go here, If your Steam download is stopping, or you may also check out if steam is downloading slowly.

However, if you still love this app, and want to use it after some time, here is a quick guide to stop Steam from opening at Startup.

STEAM

Why is Uninstallation Necessary?

Why would someone delete Steam to install it again? Well, the answer is straightforward. Steam takes more and more space as you continue to install and update games. Once the space on your PC or Mac becomes overwhelmed, you may need to free up some space to play your favorite titles.

To get rid of the unnecessary games, you need to uninstall them one by one. You may hide the games on Steam, as well as hiding game activity on steam, but uninstalling them is your best bet if you want to free up space. Manually selecting and removing games from the huge list can be a headache. So, you uninstall the Steam application for the sake of freeing up space on the hard drive and then reinstall it is the best solution

You may also want to uninstall it if Steam is not working correctly. Uninstalling and reinstalling replace the corrupted files and makes your Steam installation fresh. This step-by-step guide will show you methods on how to remove Steam from your computer and Mac.

Related: How to change Steam account name?

How to uninstall Steam without losing games

There are many queries in Steam Forums asking, “if I uninstall Steam what happens to my games”? Well, Steam removes all the games and saves data when we uninstall it from the PC. So, before proceeding with the Steam uninstallation, make sure to backup the local data on your computer. If you remove Steam to free up space or troubleshoot, then backing up necessary data saves your time.

To start with the backup, follow these easy steps.

  1. Locate the Steam application and open it. Go here if Steam is not opening properly.

2. On the top left of its main interface, click the “Steam” button.

backup and restore steam

3. A drop-down menu will open, select “Back and Restore Games,” and check the “Backup” option from the next options.

4. After having selected that, Steam gives a choice to select the games that you want to backup manually.

backup steam data

5. Select the backup destination, and Steam will start the backup process. For a better experience, use the external hard drive to backup your Steam data. But it also provides an option to break down the large files into smaller files to fit on DVDs.

Related: Steam missing file privileges error.

How to Uninstall Steam from PC

Method 1: The Usual Way

This is the typical way that we use to uninstall other applications from the PC. Let us break it down into easy steps.

  1. To uninstall Steam on Windows 10, go to the Windows menu by clicking on your screen’s bottom-left corner. You can achieve this by pressing the Windows key on your keyboard.

2. Search for “Add or Remove programs” and open it once it appears in your search results.

unistall steam

3. Once it opens, you will see a list of programs installed on the PC and search for “Steam” in the search bar.

remove steam from pc

4. Click on it and select “Uninstall.”

Steam removes every file from its installation folder. If you have installed the Steam application in a Shared folder, it will also remove all the shared folders’ files. So make sure to backup those files before proceeding with the Steam uninstallation.

Related: How to refund a game on Steam?

Method 2: Manually Removing Steam

For most users uninstalling Steam works fine using “Add or Remove Program.” But if you can’t uninstall Steam using it, there is still a way that you can remove Steam from your computer. It involves playing around with the computer registry and makes necessary changes.

If you have basic knowledge of registry files on the computer, you can proceed with this method. However, don’t follow this method if you are a newbie or not comfortable with the registry, as it involves the risk of corrupt registry files if you didn’t follow the steps correctly.

To remove Steam manually from Windows:

  1. Open the Windows menu from the bottom left corner and search “Run,” or type “Windows Key + R.” (go here, if windows cannot find steam.exe)

2. Once it opens, type in “Regedit” and press OK.

regedit remove steam

For a 32-bit Operating System

  1. Inside the Regedit, click on “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.”
unistall steam using regedit

2. Then click on “SOFTWARE.”

3. From the list, find “Valve.”

4. Right-click on it and delete it.

For 64-bit Operating System

  1. Click on “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”
clean steam files

2. Now go to the “SOFTWARE” and click it

3. Click on the “Wow6432Node”

4. Find “Valve” from the list

5. Right, Click and Delete it.

Congratulations, you have successfully removed all Steam data from your computer.

How to uninstall Steam on Mac

Uninstalling Steam on macOS is straightforward and does not involve any complex registry edits. To begin with the mac:

  • Navigate to the “Applications” by opening a new finder window.
  • From the list, find the Steam application by scrolling down.
  • Now right click on the “Steam” application, and from the options, select “Move to Trash.”
remove steam on mac

You can avoid this by simply drag and drop the “Steam” application into the trash.

remove steam on mac 2

For clearing the app data, click on “Go” to find the Library folder on the top Menu Bar.

Wait for the Library folder to open. In case if you cannot see the library folder, hold on to the Options button.

Inside the Library, navigate to the Library>Application Support>Steam.

If you are uninstalling Steam completely, you can choose an entire Steam folder and move it to trash.

remove steam on mac 1

If you want to save your games and local files, then delete all the Steam folder data except “Steamapps.”

To finalize the installation on Mac, go to Dock and right-click on the trash icon, and select Empty Trash. Once you did that, Steam completely removes it from Mac.

How to uninstall Steam on Ubuntu

Most users use Linux for programming and getting productivity out of it. If you are a Linux user and a gamer, you need to uninstall the Steam app from your computer. Fortunately, there are two easy methods by which we can remove Steam on Ubuntu.

uninstall steam on ubuntu

Method 1: With Remove Command

Ubuntu is known for its terminal commands because we use the terminal for everything from software installation and uninstallation. This straightforward method involves the execution of a simple command using terminal windows.

  • Open a terminal and execute “Sudo apt remove Steam”
  • If it asks for confirmation, press S to confirm it. In the end, you will see the following message.
  • “We check that Steam is not available in Ubuntu from Activities.”

Related: Where are Steam screenshots saved on PC?

Method 2: With Purge Command

This method also uses the terminal for the removal of Steam from Unbuntu. However, it involves more than one command.

  • Open the terminal and execute the following: “sudo apt purge steam”
  • Confirm the action by pressing S, and next during the process, there will be other things
  • In few cases, it indicates that the purge command can leave some files behind and will not completely uninstall Steam.

To uninstall the remaining files on the computer, run the following commands

For removing Steam launcher

sudo apt purge steam-launcher

To delete the local files in the folders

cd ~ / .local / share && rm –rf Steam

For further uninstalling the remains, run following command

rm ~ / .steampath rm ~ / .steampid

Now Steam has been completely removed from your Ubuntu OS.

Restoring Steam Data After Installation

­If you made a backup of Steam files before uninstalling them, then you can restore the data quickly.

1. Open the Steam application and click the “Steam” button on the main interface.

2. Going to “Backup and Restore Games,” and from the drop-down menu, choose the “Restore” option.

restore data on steam

3. Now locate it to the backup you already made before the uninstallation.

4. Steam will detect the files and begin to restore them.

Summary

Uninstalling Steam from PC is very straightforward like any other PC or Mac application. But you need to keep in mind to backup the game data; otherwise, you will lose your downloaded games data from your PC. If your Steam client is not working well or is facing low space on your hard drive, uninstalling and reinstalling it can save your time.

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Muhammad Kashif

M. Kashif is a published author at Gaming Expert.net. He is a tech enthusiast, a passionate gamer and loves to try new gadgets and writing about games and technology events.