Where apps hide your files

Steam's game folder and saves, explained

Updated 2026-10-28 · 7 min read

Steam hides your games and their settings in your Library folder. This gives the path, what steamapps holds, and where the saves really are.

Where Steam puts things

On a Mac, Steam keeps its data and your games inside your Library:

~/Library/Application Support/Steam

The games themselves are in the steamapps folder inside it:

~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/

Each installed game has its own folder under common, named after the game. Steam's own support pages confirm ~/Library/Application Support/Steam as the Steam folder on macOS (they give its userdata and logs folders there); the layout inside steamapps is the same on every platform.

Open it

1. In Finder choose Go > Go to Folder (⇧⌘G).
2. Paste ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps and press Return.

In Terminal: open ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/steamapps. From inside Steam, right-click a game in your Library and choose Manage > Browse local files to open the game's own folder in Finder (older clients put this under Properties).

What is in the Steam folder

Path	What it is
steamapps/common/<Game>	The installed game files.
steamapps/appmanifest_<number>.acf	A small text file per game that records its install state. The number is the Steam app ID.
steamapps/downloading and steamapps/temp	Partial downloads and update staging, when a download is in progress.
steamapps/shadercache	Cached shader data, when a game creates it.
steamapps/workshop	Workshop content, for games that use it.
userdata/<Steam ID>/<app ID>/	Per-account data, including Steam Cloud files for each game.

The .acf files matter more than they look. Steam uses them to know a game is installed. If you move a game folder by hand without moving its manifest, the client will think the game is missing.

Where the saves are

This is the part that surprises people. A game's save files are usually not in steamapps. Each developer chooses where its saves go, and on a Mac the common places are:

• ~/Library/Application Support/<game or studio name>/
• ~/Documents/<game or studio name>/
• inside ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/userdata/<Steam ID>/<app ID>/, which Steam Support names as the local home of a game's cloud files

So uninstalling a game normally removes the folder under common but leaves its saves behind. That is a feature: reinstall and your progress is still there. The other half is that deleting steamapps does not wipe your progress, and also does not free the space the saves use. The companion post on game save locations explains how to track down a particular game's saves.

To check whether a game uses Steam Cloud, look for the Steam Cloud logo on its store page; Steam Support adds that developers choose which files are synced. Cloud sync can be switched per game under Properties > General. Do not rely on it as your only backup: Steam Support says that if cloud saves are lost it is unlikely to be able to recover them, so if you care about a save, copy it.

Space: what grows and what is safe

Games are what take the room, and they are very large. To see sizes, open Steam > Settings > Storage, which lists each drive and how much of it Steam is using. Look at the biggest games first.

• Safe: uninstalling a game from the Steam library (right-click, Manage, Uninstall). It can be downloaded again. Saves in other folders stay.
• Safe, with Steam closed: the contents of steamapps/downloading if a download is stuck, and the shadercache folder. Steam rebuilds both. Move them to the Trash, do not use rm.
• Not safe: deleting folders from common by hand while leaving the .acf manifest. Steam will show confusing states. Uninstall from within Steam instead.
• Never touch userdata unless you have copied it first.

Moving games to another drive

Steam supports more than one library folder, and the Storage page is where you manage them. Steam Support's steps:

1. Open Steam > Settings and choose the Storage tab.
2. Click the + button at the top to add a new library location, such as a folder on an external drive.
3. Select the drive that holds the games, tick the games to move, and click Move.

Future installs can then go to the new location too. A library on an external drive only works while that drive is connected.

Moving the whole Steam installation is a different job. Steam Support recommends backing up steamapps first, and it advises against installing Steam itself on an external drive because of potential performance problems.

Backing up and moving to a new Mac

1. Quit Steam.
2. Copy steamapps (it contains your games and manifests) and, separately, your save folders in ~/Library/Application Support and Documents.
3. On the new Mac, install Steam, sign in, quit it, put steamapps in the same spot, then open Steam and use Verify integrity of game files on each game, as Steam Support suggests after a move.

Many games are quicker to redownload than to copy over a network, but your saves are the part worth backing up. Steam Cloud covers games that support it. Some older Mac titles in your library will not run at all, because they are 32-bit and macOS Catalina and later run only 64-bit apps.

Why Spotlight cannot see it

Everything in the Steam folder is inside ~/Library, so Spotlight returns nothing from it. Game folders are also full of files with names such as .pak, .ucas or .dat that mean little to a search anyway.

Locating one game later

Type a game's name, or appmanifest, into Everywhere and the game's folder under common comes up, along with any save folder of the same name in Application Support that Spotlight skips; ⌘↵ reveals it in Finder. Libraries on an external drive and saves in Documents are included once Everywhere has Full Disk Access. It matches file names only, so search for the folder or save file, not text inside a log.

Common questions

Where does Steam install games on a Mac?

In ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common, with one folder per game. Use Go > Go to Folder (⇧⌘G) to open it.

Where are Steam game saves on a Mac?

Usually not in steamapps. Most games save to ~/Library/Application Support/<game or studio> or ~/Documents, and games using Steam Cloud also have files under ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/userdata.

Can I install Steam games on an external drive on a Mac?

Yes. In Steam > Settings > Storage, click + to add a library folder on the drive, then select games and click Move. The drive must be connected whenever you play those games.

What is the steamapps folder?

It is the folder inside Steam's data directory that holds installed games under common, plus an appmanifest .acf file for each one. Do not rename or move game folders by hand.