Backup Steam Workshop

When wallpapers are deleted from Steam for any reason, Steam will also delete them from your PC. Wallpaper Engine cannot prevent that, but if this is a concern for you, you can make a backup of your wallpapers.

Similar to that, there are many reports that Steam will randomly decide to re-download all Workshop files, which can be an annoyance if you have many Gigabytes of data. Creating a backup and severing all ties to Steam can avoid that if it happens too often.

Creating a Backup

The following guide expects that your Steam and Wallpaper Engine are installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\, if you have installed your Steam / Wallpaper Engine somewhere else, be sure to check in those locations.

TIP

431960 is the Steam ID of Wallpaper Engine, Steam uses this directory for all Wallpaper Engine downloads.

1. Locate the folder in which Steam stores your wallpapers, by default it is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\431960
2. Copy the folder 431960 to Wallpaper Engine's installation path here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\projects\431960
3. Rename the folder 431960 into backup so that the complete path looks like this: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\projects\backup
4. The backup directory now includes all your previously downloaded wallpapers, each in their own sub-directory (the numbers represent the Steam Workshop ID of the wallpaper)
5. Restart the wallpaper browser and you should see the backed up wallpapers now. You can now unsubscribe the duplicate Steam ones and only use your personal copy of them

WARNING

Do not manually delete the Steam Workshop folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\431960. This will cause your Steam to be confused and re-download all wallpapers. Simply unsubscribe from your wallpapers and let Steam delete the duplicate files itself.