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I built a tool to reclaim disk space from Steam games you forgot you installed

DEV Community [Unofficial] June 16, 2026
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The problem

Every few months my SSD hits 95% full. The culprit is always the same: AAA games I installed, played for a week, and never opened again. Steam's storage view shows size per game — but not how long since I last played. So cleanup was always guesswork.

What I built

GameCleaner scans your Steam library and:

  • Sorts every game by size on disk
  • Flags titles you haven't touched in months ("stale")
  • Estimates total reclaimable GB
  • Backs up saves (userdata + Proton compatdata) before any removal
  • Lets you uninstall, clear shader caches, or move games between drives — dry-run by default, path-contained deletes

How it works under the hood

It parses Steam's libraryfolders.vdf and each appmanifest_*.acf, reads SizeOnDisk and LastUpdated, and walks the shader cache. Move actions copy → verify size → then delete the source, so a transfer can't leave you with a half-broken install.

Status

Early. Steam on Windows/Linux for now; Epic/GOG next. Landing + waitlist while I package the app.

Try it / join early access: https://gamecleaner.netlify.app

Feedback welcome — especially on per-game save locations I should cover beyond userdata/compatdata.

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