Steam Families: Share Games, Parental Controls, Purchase Requests

Steam Families lets you share your game library with up to five family members, apply parental controls to their accounts, and manage their purchase requests—all from one central hub. You can authorize family members to play your games, approve or deny their requests to buy new games, and set playtime limits and content restrictions. This guide explains exactly how the system works, how to set it up, and what to do when things go wrong.

What Is Steam Families?

Steam Families is Valve’s replacement for the older Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View features, rolled out into full release in late 2024. It combines library sharing, parental controls, and purchase approvals into a single unified system. Instead of juggling separate settings for sharing and restrictions, you now manage everything under one “Family” group. Up to six accounts (including yours) can join a family, and each member can access the combined library of games owned by anyone in the group—though only one person can play a shared game at a time, unless the owner is playing a different game.

The system is designed for households, not groups of strangers. Valve explicitly states that families should be people who live together and trust each other, because joining a family grants access to shared games and requires a cooldown period before you can leave or switch families.

How Library Sharing Works

Once you create or join a family, every member’s game library becomes visible to all other members. When a family member wants to play a game they don’t own, they see it in their library with a “Play” button. The game launches as if they own it, and their achievements, saves, and playtime are tracked on their own account.

There are a few important limits:

One player per copy: If two family members want to play the same game simultaneously, they can’t—unless the owner is playing a different game entirely. For example, if Alice owns Baldur’s Gate 3 and is playing it, Bob cannot play it. But if Alice is playing Counter-Strike 2, Bob can play Baldur’s Gate 3.
DLC and in-game purchases: Shared games include DLC that the owner has purchased, but in-game purchases (like skins or currency) are tied to the person playing, not the owner.
VAC and bans: If a family member gets banned from a game (e.g., VAC ban), the ban can affect the owner’s account for that game. This is a real risk, so only share with people you trust.
Region restrictions: Some games are region-locked, so a game bought in one country may not be playable in another family member’s region.

Parental Controls: What You Can Restrict

For each child account in your family, you can set:

Playtime limits: Set daily or weekly hour caps, and choose whether the child can request more time when they hit the limit.
Content restrictions: Block games by age rating (e.g., hide all games rated M or AO) or block specific games individually.
Store restrictions: Hide mature content on the Steam store, including games, DLC, and user-generated content.
Communication restrictions: Limit who can send friend requests, chat, or join voice chat with the child.
Purchase approvals: Require that any purchase (including adding funds to the wallet) be approved by an adult family member.

These settings are applied per child, so you can have different rules for a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old.

How Purchase Requests Work

When a child with purchase approvals enabled tries to buy a game, add funds, or make an in-game purchase, Steam doesn’t complete the transaction. Instead, it sends a notification to the adult members of the family (via Steam mobile app and email). The adult can then:

Approve: The purchase goes through, and the child gets the game.
Deny: The request is rejected, and the child is notified.
Ignore: The request stays pending until the adult acts on it.

You can also set a spending limit per request, so a child can buy a $10 game without asking, but anything over that needs approval. The adult gets a notification each time a request is made, and can review the history of all requests in the Family Management page.

How to Set Up Steam Families

Setting up a family is straightforward, but you need to be on the same account family group. Here are the steps:

Open Steam and go to Settings > Family.
Click Create a Family and give it a name.
Invite up to five other accounts by email or Steam friend request.
Each invited member must accept the invitation in their own Steam client.
Once everyone is in, go to Family Management to assign roles (adult or child) and set parental controls.

Important: You can only be in one family at a time, and you can’t switch families more than once every 12 months. If you leave a family, your own games become unavailable to the others immediately, and you lose access to their libraries.

Common Problems and Misconceptions

One of the most common questions is whether you can play a shared game while the owner is playing something else. The answer is yes, as long as the owner is playing a different game. If the owner is offline, you can play any shared game freely. If the owner starts playing a game that you’re using, you get a warning and a few minutes to save and quit.

Another misconception is that all games are shareable. In reality, some games are excluded by the publisher—typically games that require a third-party account (like Ubisoft or Rockstar titles) or games with their own DRM. If a game doesn’t appear in the shared library, it’s likely blocked by the publisher.

A common problem is that parental controls don’t apply to the adult’s own account. If you want to restrict yourself (e.g., to curb your own spending), you’d need to create a separate child account and use that for your own play—not a typical use case.

Finally, if a child is over 18, they can choose to leave the family and take their games with them. There’s no way to force an adult to stay, so family sharing works best with younger children who don’t have their own payment methods.

Privacy and Safety Considerations

When you join a family, you’re trusting other members with your library and your purchase history. They can see what games you own, what you’re playing, and how much time you spend in each game. If you have games you’d rather keep private, you can hide them from your profile, but they’ll still be visible to family members.

For children, the parental controls are robust, but they’re not foolproof. A tech-savvy teen could potentially bypass restrictions by creating a new Steam account and joining a different family—though that would require another adult to invite them. For most families, the controls are sufficient to prevent accidental purchases and limit exposure to mature content.

Also note that Steam Families is tied to your Steam account, not your Windows user account. If your child uses the same computer, they’ll need to log into their own Steam account to get their own restrictions. Make sure your Windows account has a password to prevent them from logging into your Steam account.

Comparison: Steam Families vs. Console Family Sharing

Steam Families is similar to Xbox Family Settings and PlayStation Family Management, but with some differences:

Number of members: Steam allows 6, Xbox allows up to 9 (including the organizer), PlayStation allows 7.
Game sharing: On Xbox, you can share your entire library with one designated “home” console. On PlayStation, you can share with one primary console. Steam shares with all family members, but with the one-at-a-time restriction.
Purchase approvals: All three platforms have some form of purchase approval, but Steam’s is the most granular, allowing per-request approval and spending limits.
Playtime limits: Xbox and PlayStation both have screen time limits; Steam added this with Families, but it’s still less flexible (you can set daily or weekly caps, but not specific hours like “no games after 9 PM”).

Overall, Steam Families is competitive with console offerings, though the one-at-a-time sharing rule is a notable limitation compared to console “home” sharing which allows multiple people to play different games simultaneously.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can two people play the same shared game at the same time?

No. Only one person can play a specific game at a time, unless the owner is playing a different game. If the owner is offline, another family member can play the game, but if the owner comes online and starts that game, the other person gets a warning and must exit.

How do I approve a purchase request from my child?

You’ll get a notification in the Steam mobile app or by email. Open the notification, log in, and you’ll see the game and price. Click Approve or Deny. You can also go to Steam > Settings > Family > Purchase Requests to see all pending requests.

Can I share games with someone who lives in another country?

Technically yes, but region restrictions may prevent them from playing certain games. Also, if you’re in different countries, you might have different store prices and currencies, which can complicate purchase approvals. It’s best to share only with people in the same household and region.

What happens if I leave a Steam Family?

You immediately lose access to the shared library, and your games become unavailable to the other members. You can’t join a new family for 12 months, so think carefully before leaving.

Can a child bypass parental controls by creating a new account?

They could theoretically create a new account and join a different family, but they’d need an adult to invite them. Also, the new account would have no games unless they buy them or share from the new family. In practice, this is unlikely for most children.

Do I need a Steam Family to use parental controls?

No. You can set up parental controls on a child’s account without joining a family, using the older Family View. However, Steam Families integrates everything in one place and adds purchase approvals, which Family View doesn’t have. For most parents, Families is the better option.

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