How to make your Steam profile public

If a stats tool comes back empty, or a friend cannot see your games, your profile is set to private. Steam splits privacy into several settings, so you can share exactly what you want and keep the rest hidden. Here is how to change them.

Steps on the website or client

1. Open your Steam profile. On the web, sign in and go to your profile. In the client, click your name at the top and pick View Profile.
2. Click Edit Profile.
3. Open the Privacy Settings tab.
4. Set My profile to Public.
5. Below that, set the individual pieces you care about.

The changes save on their own, so there is no separate save button to hunt for.

What each setting controls

Steam gives you a switch for each part of your profile, and this is where people trip up. Setting the profile public is not always enough on its own.

• My profile. The overall profile page. Set to Public so people can find it at all.
• Game details. Your library and, crucially, your playtime hours. This one must be public for stats and value tools to read your games.
• Inventory. Your items. Set to Public for any inventory value check to work.
• Friends list. Who you are friends with. Optional, and fine to keep private.
• Comments. Who can post on your profile.

There is also a separate "Always keep my total playtime private" checkbox under game details. Even with game details public, if that box is ticked, your hours stay hidden. Untick it if you want playtime to show, then see how to see your total hours played for where to read them.

Quick setup for stats tools

If your goal is to use profile, stats, or value tools, set these three to Public:

1. My profile
2. Game details
3. Inventory

And make sure total playtime is not force-hidden by that extra checkbox.

How to make your Steam profile private

It is the same screen, used the other way round. Everything here is reversible and nothing is permanent.

1. Open your profile and click Edit Profile.
2. Open the Privacy Settings tab.
3. Set My profile to Private to hide the whole page from everyone but you, or Friends Only if you still want friends to see it.
4. Set Game details to Private to hide your library, playtime, achievements and wishlist, even from friends.
5. Set Inventory and Friends list the same way if you want those hidden too.

Two things worth knowing. Friends Only is what most people mean by "private", and it keeps everything open to accepted friends. And a private profile still shows your name, avatar and SteamID, as how to see a private Steam profile explains.

If you only want to hide certain games rather than your whole library, you do not need any of this. Mark those games as private instead, which how to hide games and activity on Steam walks through.

If it still is not showing

Privacy changes can take a short while to travel out to third party tools, since data gets cached. Give it a few minutes, then try your lookup again.