How To Family Share On Steam

With Valve‘s Steam You can gift games to your friends on Steam. While it’s an interesting feature, you may also not the feel the urgency to buy games repeatedly for your next of kin. You can save a lot of money by just sharing your games library with them. This is possible, all thanks to the ‘Family Sharing’ feature on Steam.

However, you can’t simultaneously access a particular game with the shared user. Doing so will prompt the shared user to ‘exit’ the game or buy it instead.

So, in order to Family Share on Steam, either of the accounts, i.e. of the parent and the child, should have the Steam Guard enabled for secure verification processes, during login attempts. You may refer our guide further to know about all the necessary steps required to share games on Steam.

Objective 1: To Enable Steam Guard

1. Log in to the account on Steam for which you want the game to be shared.
2. Access the settings from the ‘Steam’ menu located in the left upper corner. You shall get a box enlisting all the necessary user preferences.
   
3. In the ‘Accounts’ section, click on ‘View Account Details’ as highlighted in the image above. It shall redirect you to a page within the local steam browser.
4. Scroll down to find ‘Account Security’. Click on ‘Manage Steam Guard’.
   
5. The above step will lead you to a page enlisting several options based on which you want to receive the Steam Guard codes. Select the one desirable to you.
6. Close and restart Steam on the same device.

Objective 2: To access the shared Steam Game library

1. Login to the parent account from where you want to family share on Steam.Note: You can login to the parent steam account on ten different known devices. Especially relevant, only five steam accounts can access the parent’s game library.
2. Log out from the parent account.
3. Login back to the user with whom the games are to be shared with. Click on library located in the ‘Games’ menu.
4. Now you shall be able to see all the list of games, in the library, owned by the parent.
5. Click on any game from the parent’s library and hit the ‘Play/Install’ Doing so, shall reveal a message, asking you to request access from the parent account.
   
6. Click on ‘Send Request’. The parent then shall receive a mail to authorize the request. Ask him/her to do so by visiting the authorization link attached with the email.
   
7. You shall now be able to access all the games available in the parent account.

To allow other local accounts to gain access, the parent can authorize them in the ‘Family section’ available in the settings.

While the games have been shared, it is also important for the owner to monitor the users who have access to his her/her entire games library. Fortunately, Steam allows you to do so with the ‘Family View’ feature. It can be accessed again in the ‘Family menu’ located in the settings. To know more about the family view and how it works, you may visit the following link.

Note: Not all the games support the Steam family sharing feature. This is mainly because of issues related to subscription, licenses, third-party clients, etc.

How To Revoke Family Access?

You might want to revoke the library access for an authorized user. The steps mentioned below shall guide you on how to do so.

1. Access the Steam settings in the parent account. Go to the ‘Family’ section.
2. Click on ‘Manage other accounts’ to lead you to a page enlisting the list of all the authorized users, who have the right to access your games library.
3. Click on ‘revoke’ for the user you want to abandon your library access.

Do you still have any queries on how to family share on steam? Then let us know in the comments section below. You may also watch the video below for a detailed walkthrough on the entire process discussed above.

Filed in Gaming. Read more about Steam (Valve).