How to Limit or Turn Off Auto Updates on Steam
Want to stop a Steam update that will inevitably slow your internet speed?
Perhaps a new “fix” is known to crash the game and you want to hold off until the devs resolve?
Whatever the reason, we’ve created a fast guide on the options you have to disable auto-updates on Steam.
Quick note before we start: Steam auto-updates by default for a reason. Which is why they make it close to impossible to fully stop.
For the most part, new versions will fix issues or add features, so only disable updates if you have a reason to (we only recommend this for single player games).
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How to Turn Off Auto Updates on Steam for Specific Games
To stop Steam from updating games one at a time, start at your Steam library and right-click the game in question and click “Properties”.
Once the window opens, go to the “Updates” tab and you’ll see an “Automatic updates” dropdown box.
Set it to “Only update this game when I launch it” as below.
Steam does not give you the option to completely disable auto-updates so this is the best you can do within the app.
If you want to then play a Steam game without updating, your best option is to play in offline mode.
How to Turn Off Auto Updates on Steam for All Games
Unfortunately, there isn’t a supported way to do this.
But below are the closest methods found.
Option 1 – Download Steam Games at Certain Times
If you’re doing this because you don’t want games downloads affecting your broadband speeds, you can schedule Steam updates.
Click “Steam” in the top left corner and then “Settings”
Then go to the “Downloads” tab and you will see an option to set a time window for Steam updates as below:
If you really want to ensure Steam doesn’t update games, you can set the schedule to something like 4-5am and then make sure Steam is off or in offline mode during that period/when you play games.
Option 2 – How to Limit Steam Download Speeds
Another effective way to deal with Steam slowing down your internet is to set a Steam Bandwidth Limit.
Going to the same settings menu as option 1 above (Steam – > Settings – > Downloads) you can easily set a download limit for Steam as below:
How to Access Previous Versions of a Steam Game
Some games allow you to play older versions on Steam.
To do this, once again right-click on a game in your Steam library and click “properties”.
Go to the “Betas” tab and click on the dropdown box.
If there are other versions available, simply click on the one you want and Steam will download that version.
(Our example uses Super Meat Boy, which uses an older version for speedrunners).
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