Steam is one of the world's most popular game distribution platforms, making it easy to collect, store, and customize all your favorite games in one place. Although the platform continually develops and adds new features, very few people go further than the store or library pages. But, if you want to get more out of Steam, you can use these five features to help improve the overall experience on the platform and customize it to your liking.

5 Change your download restrictions

Change the way Steam handles downloads

If you have ever started downloading a game but wanted to play another game simultaneously, you've probably noticed that the download stops when you start to play. Easily change this by going into the Steam settings and making a few changes.

From your Steam settings, go to Downloads. From here, you can turn a few settings on and off to match your preferences. You can set auto downloads or updates to only run at certain times of the day, allow downloads during gameplay, or even throttle downloads if you are streaming.

4 Organize your library with collections

Easily filter through your library

If you have been using Steam for long, you have probably amassed an extensive library of games already. This makes it hard to navigate and get to the game you want to play. Luckily, Steam has a few ways to organize your games and customize your library.

You can manually create collections to organize your games and sort them any way you want, whether it be by franchise, publisher, genre, or any other custom tag. Dynamic collections are much more nuanced. They allow you to apply filters to a collection, automatically adding new games if they fit the criteria.

Shelves are another option to organize your favorite games in your library. They are vertical bars where you can place any games you want at the top of your library. You can add particular collections to shelves for easy access or filter for the newest titles added to your account or games currently installed on your storage drive.

3 Use Steam’s Big Picture mode

Turn your desktop UI into a console

Steam's Big Picture mode was originally added in 2012, but since the release of the Steam Deck handheld, the feature has been overhauled and made much more useful for desktop users. The Big Picture mode on Steam changes the UI design of the application and supports controller navigation. The feature makes the Steam interface look more similar to the Xbox and PlayStation dashboard.

This is especially useful if you use a TV as a display for your gaming PC. The feature bridges the gap between a console and a gaming desktop, letting you scroll through the store or your library with a controller from the comfort of your couch or bed.

2 Add custom artwork to your games

Personalize your favorite games

Steam games have three types of artwork by default: a grid image, a hero image, and a logo. The game's publisher can update this artwork for events or season changes, but most games will stay with their default artwork from launch, and older games will often have outdated or low-resolution artwork.

You can customize all these to give your game library the look and feel you want. You can find a plethora of custom artwork on community-driven sites and published websites, but if you're going to streamline the process, then use SteamGridDB.

As a bonus tip that you may not have known, you can even add animated grids, heroes, and logos to your games to add more personality. Just be careful not to add it to every game title, as this may slow down Steam.

1 Download games remotely

Be game-ready by the time you get home

This feature is an absolute lifesaver if you want to play a game when you get home but forget to put it on to download before you leave. Game files nowadays have exploded in size, with most AAA games easily being around 50 to 100GB. This makes it difficult to install and play a game in the same sitting unless you have super-fast internet.

Enter the remote download feature, which lets you install any game on your gaming PC using either the Steam web page or mobile app from anywhere. The downside is that your computer must be turned on for the remote download feature to work. Luckily, you can use the Wake-on-LAN feature to turn your PC on remotely.

Once you power your PC on, you simply need to go to the Steam app or web page, log in to the same account that's on your PC, go to your library, and tap on the Remote download option. Then, your PC will start downloading and installing the game. You can even track its progress on the app or webpage.

Change the way you use Steam

You can change Steam to improve your experience on the platform in many ways. Whether you want to improve how the platform downloads and installs games or just change the look and feel of Steam, there are many ways to do so. So look through all the Steam settings and personalize your library to fit your style.