How to Reset Steam Game Settings

By Mark R. Frechione

Updated September 22, 2017

Steam games such as “Team Fortress 2,” “Condition Zero” or “Portal” allow users to customize their settings to accommodate different player styles. Players wanting to return their game to its original settings can do so by renaming the source folder for that game. No longer able to access this folder, the game will create a new folder with default settings.

Exit the Steam application completely.

Find the Steam folder, usually located under “C:\Program Files\Steam\” on PC or “/Users//Library/Application Support/Steam” on Mac.

Locate the particular game folder within the Steam folder. For instance on a PC, the file extension for a saved Portal game could look like, “C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\\portal.” On a Mac it would be, “/Users//Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps//portal.”

Rename the game folder, for instance "\~portal" on PC or "/portal archived game settings" on Mac.

Start up Steam and open the game. The game, not able to find the original folder, will create a new folder with the default settings.

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