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Can You Hide Certain Games From Steam Families?

Mark a Steam game as Private to exclude it from Steam Families. The Hide this game option only changes how it appears in your own library.
Length1 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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Yes. Mark an individual game as Private in Steam to exclude it from your Steam Families shared library. Simply choosing Hide this game is different: that changes how the game appears in your own library and is not the setting to use for family sharing.

How to keep a game out of your Steam Families library

Use Steam’s Mark as private control for the specific game. Steam’s support guidance says private games are excluded from sharing, while friends can see and join games you choose to share. The exact menu path can vary with the current Steam client interface, so look for the game’s privacy option rather than relying on a particular sequence of clicks.

Steam also says games marked private are not transferred through local-network game file transfers.

Private versus hidden: what each setting does

Steam option What it changes Use it to prevent family sharing?
Hide this game Whether the title appears in your own library view. No. Hiding it in your library is not the same as excluding it from sharing.
Mark as private Friends’ visibility of the game and whether it is shared. Yes. Steam says a private game is excluded from the shared library.

How this relates to Steam Families

Steam Families is the current replacement for the outgoing Steam Family Sharing feature. Valve says developer-set sharing settings from the old feature carry forward into Steam Families. Steamworks describes Steam Families as allowing Steam users to play games from up to five close family members’ libraries. That does not mean every game is shareable: availability depends on title eligibility and applicable exceptions.

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