Sharing your Steam library: How to do it

Steam is the central hub for millions of PC gamers to manage games. Thanks to the family library, you can even share games with other people. Our guide shows you how.

The Steam library contains all the content that belongs to your account.

Steam has many advantages. For example, your games and content are stored online and you can access them from anywhere. With the family library, even different accounts get access when you share the games.

How to share your Steam library

First you need to set up the function:

1. In the Steam menu, open the "Steam > Settings" item.
2. Click there on "Account" and open "Manage Steam Guard Account Security".

There you can activate the Steam Guard security service, because this is the prerequisite for family sharing. After that, you share the library. This must be done on the computer whose user should be allowed to access your library:

1. Log in on the other computer with your account.
2. Open under "Steam" -> "Settings" -> "Account" the item "Family".
3. Set the check mark at "Authorize this computer".
4. Will the person with the other account now install and play a game, you must log in with your account and share this once.

Under "Manage Family View" you can make changes at any time. In total, the upper limit is five accounts and nine computers. The restriction here: Only one account can access the family library at the same time. So a parallel use is not possible.