How to Quickly Repair Steam Games [Without Redownloading]

How to Repair a Game in the Steam Client

Sometimes when you're trying to open up a Steam game, it may cause issues and errors trying to launch. These kinds of errors are most common when you've just updated or downloaded a new game. Updates or new downloads most commonly cause corrupted files to appear.

What you'll have to do in this situation is repair the game files by verifying their integrity directly from the Steam client! So here's how to verify game files and repair them on Steam:

1. Go ahead and launch Steam 
2. Click on the Library tab above
3. On the left side find the game that's causing you problems
4. Right-click the game and select "Properties"
5. Select the "Installed Files" tab in the newly opened window
6. Click on the "Verify integrity of game files" option and wait for the process to finish

You can repair game files for any of the best Steam games you may be running into problems with using this method! Just know that once you click on "Verify integrity of game files", the time you'll have to wait for varies depending on how big the game is. The bigger the game, the more time it'll take to fix up the corrupted files of a game.

If you're trying to hide Steam games from the Library tab, know that you'll have to go in there to find and repair those games by selecting "Verify integrity of game files" in their Properties tab. However, if you're running into issues with a lot more other games, then you can try to verify the integrity of corrupted game files of your whole Steam library!

How to Verify Game Files of the Whole Steam Library

Another way you can repair and verify Steam files is to do it on the entire library. It can resolve other major issues such as lag or fix Steam games not launching! Knowing that here's how to repair the game files of your entire Steam library:

1. Open up and launch Steam on your PC
2. Click on the Steam logo at the top left corner
3. Select the "Settings" tab
4. On the left of the newly opened window select the "Storage" section
5. If you've moved Steam games to another drive, choose the drive at the top drop-down menu
6. Click on the triple dots on the right side and select the "Repair Library" option

This process will go through the selected drive to find and fix any corrupted Steam files of games that have appeared lately. This may take much more time depending on how many games you have and how big all the files are. But your issues with your installed games should be fixed right after!

How to Force a Repair on a Steam Game

The last way you can try to repair a game on Steam is by forcing the verification of the game cache and other files. This will have you uninstall the game files, just not in the way you think! So here's how to force a repair on a Steam game's files:

1. Open up the Steam client and select the "Library" tab above
2. Find your game on the left, right-click it, and under "Manage" select "Browse local files"
3. This will open your PC's File Explorer. Go back to 1 folder by clicking the arrow pointing upward
4. Change the name of the folder of the game to something like "delete[GAME-NAME]"
5. Go to your Steam client and uninstall the Steam game
6. Get back to the File Explorer, and change the folder name of the game back to "[GAME-NAME]"
7. Go back to the Steam client again, and try to install the game again

If you don't change the game's Steam folder name back to how it was after uninstalling the game, it will start to reinstall it entirely in a new folder. When you change the name of the game's Steam folder back and then install the game again, it'll force the client to only verify the game files!

And that pretty much wraps up on how you can fix game files on Steam. It's easy to verify the integrity of corrupted game files, but you'll have to be online for that whole process. After you fix your game files, you can try to play Steam games offline!