How to fix: Steam takes forever to Open 2021 Guide ✅

It can be very frustrating if your Steam takes ages to open or sometimes do not even open. This is the complete guide online with the most amount of fixes. Since several things can cause this issue.

Why is steam opening slowly?

Before we show you troubleshooting guides, here are possible reasons why this is happening to you.

• Admin Permissions
• Compatibility Mode
• Cookies and Cache
• Family Sharing Feature
• Overheated modem
• Proxy Settings
• Background Applications
• Third-party Antivirus
• Overloaded rams

This mid sound very frustrating, but have you plugged your computer off the grid and back again? This sounds very trivial, but it fixes a lot of comment issues.

Also, before you start, you could do the same to your modem(router), plug it off the socket for a minute or two, and then plug it back in. It will probably take a minute or two as well till the internet connects and before your wifi starts if you are connected via wifi.

Solutions for Steam taking forever to Open

Before we start with any of the guides on how to fix your slow Steam. Make sure that you have stopped Steam. Just to make sure, do the following:

1. Press “Ctrl+Alt+Delete”
2. Find Steam in running processes
   
3. If you have not found steam, continue to the first solution. If you have found steam in running processes, select steam and click on the “End Process” button

Fix 1: Open steam as an administrator

1. Find Steam on your desktop computer and right-click on the icon
   
2. Click on “Run as administrator”
   

If Steam does not load quickly, try to fix number two. If this fix has worked, do the following:

1. Right-click on the Steam app again
2. Click on “Properties”
   
3. From the “General” tab switch to the “Compatibility” tab
   
4. Check the box “Run this program as an administrator” and click on “OK” button to confirm
   

Congratulations, you will no longer have issues with opening Steam. You can simply open it by clicking on the Steam icon as you were used to.

Fix 2: Run Steam in compatible mode

1. Right-click on Steam, and click on “Properties”
2. Go to the “Compatibility” tab and click on the check box “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and choose the previous version of Windows that you use
   
3. Click on OK and then open the Steam application

If this does not help, you can follow this tutorial again and try the previous version of Windows until it works or until you try all reversion on Windows. (we do not recommend testing anything older than Windows XP)

Fix 3: Ccleaner

This is one of the best free software that was ever available. It has several features. 

1. Click here to download CCleaner (free version) and install it
2. Open Ccleaner and from the left menu, click on “Custom Clean”
3. Keep the default settings and clicko n “Analyze”
4. After the process is done, click on “Run Cleaner”

Fix 4: Clear Steam’s browser cookie and cache

1. Open your steam and wait till it opens, even if it takes several minutes
2. Click on “Steam” in the upper right corner of the app
   
3. Click on “Settings” from the drop-down menu
   
4. In the left menu, choose “Web Browser”
   
5. Click on the “DELETE WEEB BROWSER CACHE” button and “DELETE ALL BROWSER COOKIES” button as well
   

Fix 5: Erase Steam’s download cache 

1. In the Steam app, click on “Steam” in the left upper right corner
2. From the drop-down menu, click on “Settings”
3. Choose “Downloads” in the menu on the left
4. At the bottom of the app, click on “CLEAR DOWNLOAD CACHE”
   
5. After clearing cache, exit steam on open it again to test if the opening issue is solved or not. If not, continue with the next solution

Fix 6: Switch off Family Sharing

1. Click on Steam and then click on “Settings” 
2. In the left menu, go to the “Family” tab
3. Uncheck the checkbox “Authorize Libary Sharing on this computer,” then click on the “OK” button to save
   
4. Again exit the steam app and relaunch if steam takes forever to load or not. If the loading is still slow, continue to the next solution

Fix 7: Game cache integrity verification

Fix 8: Fix your Steam library folder

1. Click on “Steam,” and from the drop-down menu, click on “Settings”
   
2. From the left menu, click o the “Downloads” tab
   
3. In “Content Libraries” click on “STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS,” and the folder will open
   
4. Now right-click on the folder and click on “Repair Library Folder”
   
5. It will take few seconds up to few more minutes. Once the process is done, exit steam and test if steam takes a long time to open, if it still does, continue with the next repair

Fix 9: SteamService.exe repair

1. Press “Windows key + R” 
   
2. Once the command prompt opens, copy the “SteamService.exe” location, then write space and copy “/repair” or you can copy the whole text “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\bin\SteamService.exe /repair” just make sure that steamservice.exe is in the same location on your computer, click on OK or hit the enter key
   
3. This process takes few minutes, even if you don’t see anything on your computer screen
4. After the repair is finished, test your Steam app

Fix 10: Restart AMD driver (Only if you have AMD Graphics card

1. Press “Ctrl+Shift+Esc” and then click on “Task Manager”
2. In Task Manager, go to the last tab, “Services”
3. Find “AMD external events utility” and right-click on it
4. Click on “restart” from the drown down menu 

Fix 11: Disable Proxy

1. Open windows settings
   
2. Go to “Network and Internet”
   
3. Click on “Proxy” from the left menu
   
4. In “Manual proxy setup” switch off “Use a proxy server”
   
5. Click on “OK” and test your Steam application 

Fix 12: End unneeded applications

1. Open Task Manager and stay in the Processes tab
2. Click on the program that you do not currently need and then click on “End task”
3. Repeat step 2 till you have ended the task for all unneeded programs

Fix 13: Update your drivers

Depending on your device, update your drivers. You can do it in your Windows or download program like “Driver Easy” to scan your computer if all your drivers are up to date.

After updating all drivers, restart your computer. After that, test the steam slow to open if it launches quickly or not.

Fix 14: Set Steam priority High

1. Open “Task Manager”
2. Switch from “Processes” to “Details”
   
3. Find “Steam.exe” and right-click on it
   
4. From the pop-up menu, Click on “Set priority” and then click on “High”
   

Fix 15: Switch Graphics card

This only applies to gamers who have more than one graphic card. Some gaming computer s have muúpltile GPUs. But even regular PCs have multiple GPUs because some motherboards have integrated GPU.

Also, if you are using a laptop computer, don’t lose your hopes yet. Some laptop computers have two graphics cards as well, to save battery when your notebook is not plugged i.

If you do not have more than one GPU on your computer or laptop, try the next fix.

Fix 16: Delete HTML Cache

1. Press “Windows + R” 
   
2. Type in “%temp%” in the command prompt and click on “OK” or hit enter
   
3.  In your “TEMP” folder, click inside the folder and press “CTR+A” keys on your keyboard to select all files in the folder
   
4. Right-click on one of the folders and click on “Delete” in the pop-up menu. Alternatively, you can press the “Delete” key on your keyboard
   
5. Now right click on the Steam app icon
6. From the menu, click on “Open file location”
   
7. You should be in folder “app cache,” which should contain folder “httpcache” delete that folder
   
8. Do step number one again
9. Type in “%localappdata%” and hit Enter or click on “OK”
   
10. Open the Steam folder and delete the folder called “htmlcache”
    

Fix 17: Corrupted files

1. Click on Windows search and search for “Command Prompt”
2. Right-click on “Command Prompt,” and from the pop-up menu, click on “Run as administrator”
3. Type in the following command “sfc /scannow”
4. Wait a few moments till the process is done

Fix 18: Disable third-party antivirus

1. Show hidden icons by clicking on the “^” button and right-click on your antivirus
2. Choose one of the options of “DIsabling” antivirus for a certain amount of time
3. Retest Steam. If it loads quickly, the issues were caused by antivirus. EIther finds different antivirus program, or you will have to disable it every time you want to play on Steam

Fix 19: Change power options

1. Open Control Panel
2. Go to “Power Options”
3. Switch your Power Options to “High Performance” profile

Fix 20: Scan your computer for incompatible applications

1. Press “Windows + R keys”
2. Type in “appwiz.cpl” and hit enter or click on the “OK” button
3. Now uninstall every program from the list

Fix 21: Install Steam again

This is one of the last solutions to fix your slowly opening Steam. You will have to uninstall the application and install it again. Unfortunately, they do not offer you reinstall the program directly.

Click here to download the latest version of the Steam app.

Will my games be erased when reinstalling Steam?

If you reinstall your steam, your games won’t be deleted. You do not have to worry about that.

Last thoughts

Suppose none of the solutions above have helped you. You might want to try to reinstall Windows if you have multiple HDDs or SSDs. You can try to install a clean version of WIndows on one of these and just install Steam if it works. If this fixes your issue, you will have to back up your files, and don’t forget to backup your saved passwords in your internet browser. And reinstall windows on your main HDD.

You might also want to screenshot or make a list of all programs you are using before you reinstall your Windows system.

Other guides for Steam:

• Unsubscribe from all mods at once