How to Share Games on Steam With a Steam Family

A Steam library is shared through Steam Families now. It replaced Family Library Sharing and Family View in September 2024, and the set-up has no computer to authorise any more: the sharing follows the account. Older guides that send you to Settings > Family to authorise a PC are describing something Valve has retired.

1. On the Steam store, go to Account Details and open Family Management. You will need to be signed in.
2. Click Create a Family and give it a name. You can change the name later.
3. Click Invite a Member, then pick or search for the other person’s account.
4. Choose Adult or Child. Everyone gets Adult unless you want playtime and game limits on that account.
5. They get an alert and accept the invite.

Their family games then sit in the Steam library alongside their own. To see them apart, tick Group By Library in the dropdown at the top of the game list. You can also manage the family from the Steam client or the mobile app.

A family holds six people, you included. Each person keeps their own account, and Valve is blunt about passwords: never give yours to anyone, family included.

Can a friend join your Steam Family?

Valve says no, and Steam can enforce it. The feature is meant for “a household of up to 6 close family members”, and one of the three reasons Steam Support gives for a refused invite is that account activity does not show you belong to the same household. Valve does not publish what it looks at, and says the requirements will change over time. Its pages set no explicit rule about countries, but a friend in another house or another country is exactly who that check is there to catch.

Valve’s route for friends is Remote Play Together. Only you need to own the game. It streams from your PC, and your friend joins your local co-op session without installing anything from your library:

1. Launch a game that lists Remote Play Together in the details on its store page.
2. Press Shift+Tab to open the Steam overlay.
3. In your friends list, right-click your friend and choose Remote Play Together.
4. Once they accept, they are in the game with you.

Valve says four players can join, more on a fast connection, and a friend can even join from a phone through the Steam Link app. It suits couch co-op games and little else, because you have to be playing too. The same technology also streams any of your games between your own computers, which helps when the only strong PC in the house is in another room. If nobody’s machine can run the game at all, look at our cheap gaming laptop picks.

Playing at the same time

Two family members can play different games from the same person’s library at once, and the owner can play something else while you use their copy. The same game is the limit: one copy, one player. If you own Portal 2 and someone wants to join you in it, somebody in the family has to buy a second copy.

When a game is locked, Steam shows you who is playing it. If another member owns the game with identical DLC, Steam launches that copy for you instead. A copy with different DLC is offered too, though your saves may or may not work with it.

Shared games can also be played offline, as long as the game supports Family Sharing. You get your own achievements and your own workshop access. Saves mostly stay yours as well, although Valve notes that saved games depend on the game.

Games that will not share

Joining a family shares everything eligible automatically. You do not choose title by title. These stay out:

• Games that need another third-party key, account or subscription to play.
• Free-to-play games, and any DLC bought for them.
• Games or DLC restricted in your region or the other member’s region.
• Games that do not support the other member’s operating system.
• Games the publisher has marked as unavailable for sharing.
• Games the owner has marked as private.

Publishers can also opt out later, so a game that shares today may stop. The Steam store has a Family Sharing filter that lists what currently qualifies. As for DLC, you get what the owner of that copy has, and only the parts the publisher marked as shareable.

The one-year lock on family slots

This is the rule that catches people out. An adult can leave at any time, but cannot create or join a different family until a year after joining the last one. And each of the family’s slots has a one-year cooldown before a new member can take it, so removing someone does not give you a free seat for their replacement. Any adult can remove any member, children cannot leave on their own, and Steam tells you how long is left when you try to join.

There is one mercy. Someone who left by accident can rejoin their last family straight away, provided it has fewer than six members.

So treat each invite as a year’s commitment. We would fill the family with the people actually in your house, and leave spare slots empty rather than give one to a flatmate who is moving out in March.

What cheating costs the owner

The owner carries the risk here. If a family member is banned for cheating while playing your copy, Valve says you are banned in that game too, though other members are not affected. Your family privileges can also be revoked. That is reason enough to keep a cousin who likes cheats off the list.

Sharing with a child’s account

Add your child as a Child and you can restrict which games they see, along with the store, community and chat features, set playtime limits, and read playtime reports. Go to Account Settings > Family Management > Manage, expand the child’s entry and turn on Enable Parental controls. They can also ask you to pay for their shopping cart, which you approve from your phone or email, and an adult can recover their account once they have been in the family for 30 days.

Child is for accounts a parent creates for a child. An adult who accepted a Child invite by mistake has to ask Steam Support to remove them, because children cannot leave a family themselves.