How to see your total hours played on Steam

Steam tracks how long you play every game, but it does not hand you a tidy total for your whole account, and it barely lets you sort by hours. Here is how to see your playtime, both per game and all time.

Per game hours in the Steam client

The client shows hours for each game, just not all in one view.

Open Steam and go to your Library.
Click a game.
On its page you will see hours played, usually split into total and last two weeks.

That is fine for one game. The problem starts when you want the whole picture.

Seeing your all time total

Steam has no single button for lifetime hours across every game. To get it, you either add up each game by hand, which nobody wants to do, or you read it from your public profile.

The simple route is our Steam Stats tool. Paste your profile and it totals every logged hour and ranks your library by playtime, top to bottom. That is the view the client should give you and does not.

Sorting your library by playtime

Inside the client you can get partway there.

In your Library, right-click the top of the games list or use the sort dropdown.
Look for a sort or filter by hours option, which exists in some views but not all.

It is inconsistent, which is exactly why a lot of people use an outside tool to see a clean ranked list of where their time actually went.

Why your total might look off

Old playtime. Steam did not always track hours. Time from the early days may not be counted.
Offline play. Long offline sessions can be missed or added late.
Family sharing. Hours from shared libraries are tracked separately.

The short version

For one game, check its Library page. For your true all time total and a ranked list of your biggest time sinks, set your game details to public and run the Stats tool.