How to Delete Your Steam Account (What You Lose and What to Do First)

To delete your Steam account, sign in to Steam Support, open the help section for your account details, and choose the option to request account deletion. Valve confirms the request and holds it for a period before the deletion becomes final. When it goes through, you permanently lose every game license on the account, any Steam Wallet balance, and your inventory items, and none of it can be refunded or moved to another account.

That’s a bigger loss than deleting most accounts, so this guide covers what’s at stake, what to save, the steps themselves, and some quieter options if what you actually want is privacy.

What you lose when you delete a Steam account

Steam isn’t just a profile. It’s a library of licenses you paid for. Deleting the account ends all of them.

Item	What happens on deletion
Games and software	Your licenses end. You can’t play, download or reinstall them, including games tied to Steam that you bought elsewhere and activated on the account.
Steam Wallet funds	Lost. Wallet balances generally can’t be withdrawn as cash or moved to another account.
Inventory and trading items	Lost, including items you could have sold on the Community Market.
Product keys you redeemed	Typically can’t be used again on another account once they’ve been activated.
Community content	Your profile, reviews, guides, screenshots, Workshop items and comments are generally removed.
Friends, groups and chat history	Removed from your side. Messages may remain in other people’s chat history.
Cloud saves and achievements	Gone with the account.

If the account also has a subscription, a pending refund, family sharing set up, or funds you’re waiting on from the Community Market, deal with those before you request deletion. Also check whether any other services, such as a game publisher’s account, are linked to your Steam login.

Before you request deletion

1. Download your data. Steam has a section in your account details where you can see and download the personal data it holds, such as purchase history and login records. Save a copy.
2. Back up saves you care about. Some games store saves locally on your computer; others keep them only in Steam Cloud. Copy the local save folders for games you might replay on another platform.
3. Use up or accept the loss of your Wallet balance. Spending it on a gift for a friend, or on anything you want, is the only practical way to get value from it. Don’t expect Valve to cash it out.
4. Save screenshots and reviews you wrote. If you have guides or reviews you’re proud of, copy the text out first.
5. Screenshot evidence of harassment if that’s why you’re leaving, with usernames and dates, before the account is gone. Our help resources page lists where to report online abuse.
6. Tell anyone who shares your library. If family members play through Steam’s family features, they’ll lose access to your games too.

How to delete your Steam account

There’s no instant delete button in the Steam client. Deletion is handled as a support request, which is a deliberate safeguard against someone deleting your account after a hack. Valve’s menus change, so these steps are general.

1. Sign in to Steam Support on the web or in the Steam client, using the account you want to delete.
2. Open the help topics for your account, then the area for managing your account details.
3. Choose the option to delete your Steam account and read the warning about what you’ll lose.
4. Submit the request. Steam Support may ask you to confirm you own the account.
5. Watch for a confirmation message. Valve holds deletion requests for a period before they become final, and you can cancel during that window. The confirmation tells you how.

If you can’t sign in because you’ve lost your password or Steam Guard access, use Steam’s official account recovery pages first. If you think someone else took the account over, treat it as a hack before anything else: our guide to a hacked Steam account covers recovery.

Gentler options if you want privacy, not deletion

Many people who search for how to delete a Steam account really want to stop being found, or to put distance between their current life and an old gaming identity. You can often do that without losing your library.

• Make your profile private. Steam’s privacy settings let you hide your profile, game details, friends list and inventory from everyone except you.
• Change your profile name. Your profile name is separate from your account name, which isn’t shown publicly. Pick something that isn’t your real name.
• Clear your name history. Steam keeps a list of past profile names. There’s usually an option on your profile to clear it, so older names stop showing.
• Remove a custom profile URL if it contains your real name or a handle you use elsewhere.
• Delete individual reviews, comments and screenshots that you don’t want tied to you.
• Stop using the account. An unused account costs nothing and keeps your games if you ever want them back.

These steps also help with search results. A public Steam profile can rank for a gamer tag, and a gamer tag is often how people connect an old identity to a real name. Our guide on how to clean up your digital footprint covers the wider picture. If you also have an Epic Games or Fortnite account, see how to delete an Epic Games account.

A worked example

This scenario is illustrative, not a real client. Priya used a Steam account through college under a handle she also used on forums. The profile showed her real first name in its name history, a list of games and some sharp reviews she wrote at nineteen. She’s now in a public-facing job and considering deleting the account.

1. She checks her library and realizes it holds dozens of games she might play again, plus a small Wallet balance.
2. Instead of deleting, she sets her profile to private, changes her profile name, clears her name history and removes her custom URL.
3. She deletes her old reviews and screenshots one by one.
4. She searches her old handle on Google. The profile still shows for a while, then drops out once Google recrawls and finds a private page. She uses the process for removing outdated content from Google for one snippet that lingered.

She kept her games and got the privacy she wanted. If she’d deleted instead, the result in search would have been similar, but the library would have been gone for good.

Common mistakes

• Deleting to fix a privacy problem. Privacy settings, a new profile name and cleared name history often achieve the same thing without losing your games.
• Forgetting the Wallet. Funds are lost when the account goes.
• Not backing up saves. Cloud-only saves disappear with the account.
• Trusting “Steam staff” in chat. Real support happens only through Steam Support’s own pages.
• Assuming it’s reversible later. After the holding period, Valve can’t restore a deleted account or its licenses.

If an old gaming handle is linked to your real name in search results or on forums, our personal reputation management service can help with removal where platform rules allow it and with building stronger results where they don’t.

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a refund for my games if I delete my Steam account?

No. Deleting your account doesn’t refund past purchases. Steam’s normal refund policy applies only to eligible recent purchases, and you should request any eligible refund before you ask for deletion.

What happens to my Steam Wallet money if I delete my account?

It’s lost. Wallet funds generally can’t be cashed out or transferred, so spend them first or accept the loss before requesting deletion.

Can I cancel a Steam account deletion?

Yes, during the holding period after you submit the request. Steam Support’s confirmation explains how. Once that window ends, the deletion is permanent.

Can I delete a Steam account I can't log in to?

Not directly. You’ll need to recover access through Steam’s official account recovery pages first, so Valve can confirm the account is yours. That protects you from someone deleting your account without permission.