How to restart your Steam gaming app in 3 ways, to enable Offline Mode or fix issues

Publish date: 2023-12-19

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You'll need to restart Steam if it's in offline mode to switch it to online mode. Or, if your Steam app is in online mode, you'll need to restart it to put it in offline mode. 

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Or maybe the app is just having a weird problem, where no matter how many times you click on an icon, the application doesn't respond.

Whichever the case, it's time to resort to the best tool in the troubleshooting toolbox: it's time to turn Steam off and then on again.

Here's how to restart Steam in three ways.

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How to restart Steam from within the application

1. Open any Steam window.

2. In the top-left corner, click the word "Steam" to open a drop-down menu.

3. From the dropdown menu, select "Exit" (PC) or "Quit Steam" (Mac). Steam will close.

The Steam dropdown menu has "Exit" or "Quit Steam" as the very last option. Ross James/Business Insider

4. Open Steam again, and log back in if you've been logged out.

5. That's it for a basic restart.

How to restart Steam when it's frozen

If Steam is frozen, you can use your computer's force quit menus to close it.

Press Command + Option + Escape on an Apple computer to open the Force Quit menu. In Windows 10, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete on Windows to open the Windows Security menu, and then select "Task Manager."

On a Mac, select "Steam" in the list of applications, and then click the blue "Force Quit" button.

In Windows, find "Steam Client Bootstrapper" in the default "Processes" tab and select "End task" at the bottom-right of the window.

Ending "Steam Client Bootstrapper" will end all Steam processes. Ross James/Business Insider

Once Steam has been forcibly closed, it can be reopened as normal.

How to restart Steam into and from offline mode

1. To restart Steam into offline mode, open a Steam window and in the top-left, select "Steam" if you're on a PC, or "Account" if you're on a Mac. From the drop-down menu, select "Go offline."

"Go offline" should be the second option from the dropdown menu. William Antonelli/Business Insider

Steam will prompt you to restart in Offline mode. Select "Restart in Offline Mode" to continue.

2. To restart into online mode, click the "Steam" option again, and select the new option that says "Go online."

A very similar prompt window will appear. Steam will close and then reopen in online mode once it's selected.

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Ross James Ross James is a freelance writer for Business Insider. Read more Read less

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