Add Friends on Steam Using the Desktop App or Website

The Steam desktop app is virtually identical to the Steam website, so you can add friends using the one you prefer. The Store tab in the app corresponds to Steampowered.com, which is Steam’s online store. The Community tab corresponds to Steamcommunity.com, which is Steam’s online community portal.

Here’s how to find and add friends on Steam using the desktop app or the Steam Community website:

Open the Steam desktop app or navigate to Steamcommunity. com. Place the mouse cursor over your username in the menu bar. Choose Friends in the drop-down menu that appears. Select Add a Friend. You can’t send friend requests on Steam until you buy a game or add funds to your Steam Wallet. New accounts are locked into a limited state until a small amount of money is spent. If you want to add friends before buying anything, ask your friends to send you an invite link. Select Go Search. Type your friend’s name in the search field. Locate your friend in the search results, then select Add As Friend. Select OK. Your friend must accept the request before they appear on your friends list. Steam users can change their profile names at any time. If you don’t see your friend in the search results, make sure they haven’t changed their name recently.

Add Friends on Steam With the Mobile App

The Steam app, which is available for Android and iOS, offers most of the same functionality as the desktop app. Some things are in slightly different places, but you can still accomplish most of the same tasks, including adding friends.

Here’s how to add friends using the Steam mobile app:

Launch the Steam app. Tap Friends. If the app opens on a screen other than your profile, first tap the ☰ (three vertical lines) icon, then select You & Friends > Profile. If you go directly to your friends list on this step, you won’t see the option to add friends. Select the Your Friends drop-down arrow. Tap Add a Friend. Scroll down to the Search for Friends section. Tap Go Search. Type your friend’s name. Locate your friend in the search results. Tap Add as Friend. Tap OK. Your friend won’t appear in your friends list until they accept the request.

What to Do When You Can’t Find Friends on Steam

Finding and adding friends on Steam doesn’t always work as expected. Steam has a few quirks about how it treats usernames that can make it tough to find friends. If the database goes down, it can become impossible to find who you’re looking for. When that happens, you have to wait for Valve to fix the problem.

When you sign up for Steam, you create a username that you use to log in to the service. This primary username isn’t the same as the username that people see in games or when you post in Steam community groups. You can change your profile name whenever you want, which can create confusion when someone tries to add you as a friend.

To make it easier for people to find you, find your Steam ID and then set a custom universal resource locator (URL) name that’s the same.

Your Steam account has four names associated with it:

Steam Account Name: The username that you use to log in to your Steam account. You can’t change it. Steam Profile Name: The name that appears on friends lists, in games, and in the Steam community. You can change this name. Real Name: Using your real name helps your friends find you in search. You can put anything you want, though, and you can change it at any time. Custom URL name: A name you set on your profile. If you set it to the same thing as your profile name, people can navigate to Steamcommunity. com/id/yourprofilename to find you.

When you search for someone on Steam, you can use their Steam profile name or their real name, but you won’t find them if they changed either to something else.

Here are some things to try if you can’t find or add your friends on Steam:

Make sure that you type their current Steam profile name. If their current profile name is different from their Steam account name, search for their account name. This idea is more likely to work if their account name and custom URL name are the same. If you know the name your friend uses for their profile (real or otherwise), you can search for that. If you still can’t find your friend on Steam, make sure they have set up their Steam profile. Generate and send a Steam friend invite link if you still can’t find or add them.

Ask Your Friend to Set Up Their Steam Profile

If your friend is new to Steam, or they haven’t set up their profile, you may not be able to find them using the search function. Ask them to open the Steam client, or visit Steamcommunity.com, and set up their profile.

It can take a while for new Steam members to show up in searches, so you may have to wait until the database updates. If you don’t want to wait, you can try a few other methods to add a friend on Steam.

The easiest way to add a friend on Steam, other than finding them with the search function, is to generate an invite link and give it to them. This process requires some communication between you and your friend outside of Steam since you’ll need to send them the code in an email or a chat app like Discord.

You generate Steam friend invite links on the same page where you access the friend search function. Here’s how to find the right location and generate an invite link:

Open the Steam desktop app or navigate to Steamcommunity. com. Place the mouse cursor over your username in the menu bar. Select Friends. Select Add a Friend. Select Create an Invite Link. Select the link and copy it, or choose Copy to clipboard to the left of the link. Send the link to your friend. When your friend clicks the link, it opens the Steam website. After they log in, they see a banner message near the top of the page. If they select Add as Friend in the message, Steam adds each of you to the other’s friends lists.