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Give Steam a new Skin

By uniQ and 1 collaborators

This guide will teach you how to use a different skin for Steam. It is also available in Spanish and Chinese.

Award

Created by

Latuniux
Offline

uniQ
Offline

Category: Modding or Configuration, Secrets, Workshop

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

16 Feb, 2016 @ 11:26am

15 Feb, 2020 @ 3:00pm

9,482	Unique Visitors
408	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

What is a Skin for Steam?

Choose your favorite skin

Move it into Steam

Change the skin in Steam

Finished ☺

Credits

Comments

What is a Skin for Steam?

We all know skins from many different
games such as League of Legends!
A Skin basically changes the look of something without changing its function!

When you install a software like Steam,
its creators determine how it looks like!
But isn´t that a bit boring?

We will tell you how you can choose your own design for Steam!

Enjoy!

Choose your favorite skin

There are many, many sites, where you can download skins. We collected a few for you to get started:

SteamSkins[www.steamskins.org]
DevianART[www.deviantart.com]
GameBanana[steam.gamebanana.com]

If you're not looking for a complete new layout, but just want to customize e.g. the colors, checkout Steam Customizer[steamcustomizer.com] . In this case, follow the intructions on their website, this guide is only for "normal" skins.

Simply visit these Websites and search for a skin you really like. If you finnaly found some interessting skins, just download the Zip-File. Don't worry if you can't decide between some nice looking skins, you can download as much as you want.

Move it into Steam

Now that you have the Zip-File, you need to extract it.
You can do that be either right-click on the file and select Extract all, or use an external software such as 7-Zip[www.7-zip.org] or Winrar[winrar.en.softonic.com].

Any way you will end with the extracted folder were your skin is stored. Copy this folder to:

Windows

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

Linux

~/.local/share/Steam/skins/

Mac

Right-click the Steam.app and select show package contents. Then move to:

/Contents/MacOS/skins

You can copy endless skins in these folders, just make sure every skin has their own folder.

Note: Some skins might require you to copy other files, or install fonts. Especially in this case, check the Read Me file. You find it in the extracted folder of your skin. We recommend you to check this file anyway, to see, if you the skins requires special actions.

Change the skin in Steam

Now you can change the skin in Steam, in some cases you'll have to restart Steam.

Go to your settings and to the select the section Interface. All your skins will appear, simply select your favorite one and hit OK

You just have to restart Steam now and you're ready to go.

Finished ☺

Now you are ready to go !

Regardless on what your final choice might have been, you will feel that Steam has just become something more personal. Something that is just like you wanted it, something of your own. Here are some impressions on how your Steam might now look like:

Metro for Steam

Air for Steam

Credits

The thumbnail was created using the colors of the original blue Steam logo. The camera icon is from Flaticon[www.flaticon.com], under the License CC BY 3.0

The idea was to further distribute the idea of customising the Steam Client based on a CHIP article[praxistipps.chip.de].

The colored Steamlogos, under "What is a Skin for Steam?", have been created by the DevianART user flat-icons and can be found under http://fav.me/d987pex

76 Comments

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Latuniux [author] 21 Aug, 2016 @ 8:00am

True! And thanks

tosac 8 Aug, 2016 @ 7:09am

voted and fav'ed
Btw man can also change the steam icon to some of windows icons. It doesn't have to be steams ;)

uniQ [author] 20 Apr, 2016 @ 8:21am

Thanks very much, but we don't need to be listed as a contributor.

SHOUBI 17 Apr, 2016 @ 4:33am

i've used your guide showcase with an image preview, feel free to add me if you wish being contributor
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=667113887
i ve mentionned it was taken from your guide & added your workshop showcase

uniQ [author] 28 Feb, 2016 @ 4:02am

Thanks for the idea, I will add it soon

EmZi 28 Feb, 2016 @ 3:56am

Add this amazing skin too: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/thresholdskin

SHOUBI 22 Feb, 2016 @ 8:17am

yeah indeed, you did an amazing job, i m agree and totally understand.
I just recommend you using perhaps steam groups link of each instead of official website and wish you will add a picture with steam piston enable as it's part of the original skin spirit.
My next guide(s) gonna be problably dedicated to PX² for sure.
And again thx for the magical link ;-)

Latuniux [author] 22 Feb, 2016 @ 7:56am

We did overthink our Guide many times before releasing it and we added/deleted some parts of it already. We are very happy with the final result and think that we don´t need to import any gif´s etc (Don´t want to be rude). Why don´t you write your own guide, then you can add everything you personally want to! Again: I don´t want to insult you or anything but we like it the way it is, thanks for the offer! We thinks gif´s or videos can be helpfull but also more confusing, we try to keep it as simple as possible so people get a quick, helpfull toutorial with this guide!
The whole topic of customization goes deeper, we just want to scratch the surface and show what is possible, also for dummies!

SHOUBI 22 Feb, 2016 @ 7:44am

i mean you should display a gif , video (i could provide it for px² for instance) to improuve showcase spirit of those previosuly mentionned main skin, could be neat.
as well as add a PixelVision² screenshot with steam piston enable, being default set up from original author. (PX² being a fork)
yeah my comment was more to promote addons/customizable abilities of skin generaly speaking over all.

Latuniux [author] 22 Feb, 2016 @ 7:39am

Uhm, what do you want to tell us? / ask us with this comment? Sorry but I don´t get it at the moment..

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