How to Add Music to Your Steam Music Player

Wondering how to add music to your Steam music player?

Who doesn’t love listening to a tune or two while playing games? We know that we do. However, it’s true that it can be a hassle to alt-tab between Spotify and Dota while we’re playing mid-game.

Thankfully, Steam actually comes with a music player. It’s pretty surreal to think about, but not a lot of people know that Steam has a built-in music player that everyone can easily access and play songs from.

If you’re new to this like we were, the steps to add music to your steam music player can be ambiguous and unclear. In this article, we’ll teach you how to add music to your steam music player.

Let’s get started!

• 1. Add Music Through Your Own Folder.
• 2. Transfer Your Music To Steam’s Folder.
• 3. How to Open Steam’s Music Player.
• 4. Adding Music in Big Picture Mode.
• 5. Playing Music in Big Picture Mode.

1. Add Music Through Your Own Folder.

First off, there are two ways that you can add music to your Steam music player. In this method, we’ll start with the more personal one by linking Steam’s music player to your personal files. Once this method is done, you’ll be able to play songs directly from your folders.

Additionally, we’ll also add an option that regularly updates your Steam music player, so that the songs available are updated every time you save new songs on your folder. Having the music files in our personal folders is much more convenient than storing them in Steam’s folder.

Here’s how you can add music through your own folder:

1. First, open up the Steam app on your computer and go to the Steam button at the top-left corner of your screen.
2. From there, look for and click on Settings then navigate to the Music tab from the left side of your screen.

3. Underneath the Music Library, click on Add to open up a file directory window. Look for your personal files here and click on Select when you’re done to add that folder to the music player.
4. Once that’s done, click on Scan now so Steam can add your music to the song library.

That should be all you need to get your songs from your personal folder added to Steam’s music player! Feel free to enable the Scan at startup option, so that Steam automatically scans for new songs from your folder every time Steam is booted. Continue reading to find out how you can play the songs you just added.

2. Transfer Your Music To Steam’s Folder.

Alternatively, here’s the second way of adding your songs to the Steam music player. Instead of redirecting Steam to your personal folder, we’ll be transferring your music files to Steam’s dedicated music folder instead.

We don’t really recommend this method, since that would mean having two folders with the same set of songs. However, it can be a pretty useful option to have if you’d like to separate your gaming music from your personal music.

Here’s how you can transfer your music to Steam’s folder:

1. Start by opening up your music folder and copying all the songs you want to transfer. You can press CTRL + A to highlight the entire folder if it helps.
2. Once you’ve done that, open up the Start menu and search for ‘This PC’. That should open up the File Explorer and from there, navigate to the directory displayed below.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\music

3. When you’ve successfully gone to the folder, paste your songs and open up Steam when you’re done.
4. From there, go to the Steam button at the top-left corner of your screen, navigate to Settings and click on Music.
5. Finally, look for and click on Scan now.

The music files that you just added to your Steam music folder should now be scanned and added to your music library. You’ll notice under Music Library the exact same directory that you just navigated to is listed there.

3. How to Open Steam’s Music Player.

Now that you have your songs added to your music player, how do you actually play music? It’s pretty easy, and luckily you can access this even without having a game open on your screen. You’ll find it on the Steam app.

Here’s how you can open Steam’s music player:

1. First, open up Steam and look for View at the top portion of your screen. Click on it.
2. From the drop-down menu, look for and select Music Player.

3. That should open up the music player, but if it’s your first time playing music, then you might not see any songs ready. Click on the six white boxes on the right side of the window.
4. You should be redirected to your music library, double-click on any song or select Play Album to play some music.

Once you’ve played any song, the Music Player should begin to show all your songs on the pop-up player even after restarting Steam. You’ll also be able to access the music player on the Steam overlay by pressing Shift + Tab while you’re in-game.

4. Adding Music in Big Picture Mode.

For you Big Picture enthusiasts, adding music to your Steam library is also pretty simple. Big Picture mode came out primarily for TVs that have Steam, but it can also be accessed by desktop users if that’s your thing.

With this, you’ll be able to play music through your TV with the Steam music player. Pretty neat!

Here’s how you can add music in Big Picture Mode:

1. Bring up the Steam Big Picture mode overlay on your TV. For desktop users, click on the rectangular button with two arrows next to your profile picture in the Steam app to open Big Picture Mode.
2. Now, go to your settings by clicking on the gear icon at the top-right corner of your screen.

3. From there, click on Music and select Setup music library. You’ll be redirected to the file directories of your current device, look for the folder that has your music and add that.

Additionally, you can also enable Scan at startup just like the desktop Steam app to automatically scan for new songs in your folder.

5. Playing Music in Big Picture Mode.

After finally adding music to your Steam app in Big Picture Mode, let’s figure out how you can play your songs. Luckily, this is pretty simple and easy to do. Just follow the instructions below, so you don’t get lost.

Here’s how you can play music in Big Picture mode for Steam:

1. Start by opening Steam in Big Picture mode. This will automatically be in Big Picture mode for TV users, but those using a desktop will find a rectangular button with two arrows next to their profile picture. Click on that to open Steam in Big Picture mode. You’ll find this at the top-right corner of the Steam window.

2. Now that you’re there, look for and navigate to Library.
3. Finally, go to Local Music and just start playing any song that’s in your library.

Voila! You should now be able to play music on both your TV and your desktop, all from Steam’s music player!

Now that you’ve reached the end of this article, hopefully, we’ve helped you add music to your Steam music player. If you have any questions, feel free to leave us a comment below.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂