Steam Game Idler is a Steam idler for Windows and Linux. It farms trading cards, builds up playtime hours and unlocks achievements across your whole library while you do something else.
Sign in once and SGI runs everything below in the background, from card drops to free-game claims.
Farms the trading card drops left in your library, one game at a time or up to 32 at once. Sell the cards on the Community Market, or craft them into badges to level up your profile.
Unlocks queued achievements with random, human-like delays, or only during the hours you choose.
Unlock, lock and edit stats for any game you own, then apply every change in one go.
Farm Steam hours on up to 32 games at once, and get new games eligible for card drops sooner.
List items on the Community Market straight from the app, priced from live buy or sell orders.
Switch between built-in color themes, pick your own font, or set a custom background.
Starts your chosen games every time SGI launches.
Run automation for several Steam accounts side by side.
Installer or portable zip on Windows; .deb, .rpm or AppImage on Linux.
Download it, sign in with Steam and choose what to run. There are no config files to edit.
Windows 10 or 11: one small installer, or a portable zip. Linux: a .deb, .rpm or AppImage package.
Learn more about installing SGI on Windows and LinuxSign in with your Steam username and password, or scan a QR code with the Steam mobile app. Your credentials go straight to Steam, and you don’t need the Steam client installed.
Switch on what you want running, minimize SGI to the tray, and get on with your day.
Learn more about every feature in the docsLooking for an alternative to Idle Master, ArchiSteamFarm or Steam Achievement Manager? Here’s how SGI compares, feature by feature.
A free, community-backed project - shaped by the people who use it every day.
All the other idlers cost more — monthly and yearly — while SGI is free and includes features that others either don't offer or lock behind paywalls.
I supported with PRO purely just to auto-claim free games.
Steam Game Idler is perfect if you want to customize your profile or be that one person with thousands of hours on a joke game. Runs smoothly in the background. Simple, convenient, and works great.
I have 2,903 games and farmed 1,600 of them in 2 weeks — made around $150 from card sales and grabbed Stellar Blade Complete Edition for free. Better than nothing!
Thanks for the tool. Being able to simultaneously idle up to 32 games is great; only took a few days to get through all my remaining card drops.
Steam Game Idler has been built in the open by zevnda since 2024. Every line that touches your Steam account is on GitHub for anyone to read.
The whole app lives on GitHub. Read it, audit it, or build it yourself.
Steam session cookies and credentials live in your operating system’s credential manager - never in plaintext, never in the cloud.
Your settings, caches and logs are stored locally on your machine. Nothing syncs to the cloud.
The things people ask most before downloading.
A Steam idler makes Steam think you're playing a game without you actually playing it. That earns the game's trading card drops and adds hours to your playtime. Steam Game Idler idles up to 32 games at once, and adds achievement tools, inventory selling and free-game claiming on top.
Steam Game Idler is legitimate software, and tools like it have been around for more than 10 years. Historically, Steam hasn't banned accounts just for using them. SGI talks to Steam through the official Steam API and SDK, the same way many games do, and its full source code is public on GitHub. As with any third-party tool, use it at your own discretion.
Yes. The app and every core feature, including card farming, the achievement tools and the playtime booster, are free. An optional Pro subscription adds a few extras for people who want to support development.
Only if you choose "Steam Sign-in", the recommended method. Your credentials go directly to Steam's own servers, the same as signing in through the official Steam client, and SGI never sees or stores your password. You can also scan a QR code with the Steam mobile app instead. If you'd rather not sign in through SGI at all, use "Legacy Sign-in" on Windows, which uses the account already signed in to your running Steam client.
Not with "Steam Sign-in", the recommended method: you sign in with your Steam username and password or a QR code, and no local Steam client is needed. "Legacy Sign-in" is the Windows-only fallback for anyone who'd rather not enter Steam credentials into SGI. It requires the Steam client to be installed, running and already signed in.
SGI runs each game in a lightweight idle process that Steam recognizes as a running game. Cards drop at the same rate as they would during normal play. It works through every game in your library that still has drops, up to 32 at a time. Sell the cards on the Community Market, or craft them into badges to level up your Steam profile.
Yes. The Playtime Booster idles up to 32 games at once, the most Steam allows. Each one adds hours to your playtime just as if you were playing it. The Automatic Idler can also start your chosen games every time SGI launches.
Idle Master focuses on card farming and Steam Achievement Manager on achievements, and neither is actively developed anymore. ArchiSteamFarm covers a lot, but you set it up through configuration files. SGI puts card farming, achievements, playtime, inventory selling and free games in one actively maintained desktop app that you set up by signing in.
Windows 10 and 11 (installer or portable zip) and Linux (.deb, .rpm or AppImage). Steam Sign-in works on both. Legacy Sign-in is Windows-only.
SGI uses the official Steamworks SDK to update a game's achievement states. This is the same method lots of legitimate games use internally to manage their own achievements.
Yes. You can lock any achievement you own, removing it from your profile. This is useful if you want to replay a game for the experience of earning those achievements again.
What Steam's changes mean for idling, trading cards and achievements.
You can't delete Steam achievements, but you can hide them with privacy settings or relock them. Here's what each option does and what it changes.
How Steam trading cards work, from card drops and booster packs to crafting badges, leveling up your profile and selling cards on the Community Market.
How to level up on Steam, with how much XP each level needs, every badge that gives XP, what the fast and free options cost, and what higher levels unlock.
Download Steam Game Idler and get started in minutes. No sign-up required.
Windows 10 / 11~7 MBFree to use
