Steam is one of the top game distribution platforms available out there. Using Steam, you can purchase and download games. Also, it gives you the option to connect with other fellow gamers. But it is quite frustrating when Steam doesn’t open on Mac. So the question is, how to fix Steam not opening on Mac issue?
In this article, I will be sharing a couple of reasons why Steam may not launch on Mac and how you can fix them. So let’s just head into the topic without wasting much of the time.
Why is Steam not opening on Mac?
There are various reasons why Steam may fail to launch. Being one of the popular platforms with millions of users, the servers of Steam may go offline for a moment. As a result, you fail to establish a connection.
While this is a pretty rare incident, it would still be good to check if Steam’s server is online by going to store.steampowered.com/stats.
If servers are online, then maybe your installation file has corrupted or it’s the app cache that is causing the main issue. However, no matter what the issue is, below are the steps that you can follow to fix the error.
How to Fix Steam Not Opening On Mac Issue?
1. Delete Steam.AppBundle
A lot of the users reportedly confirmed that by deleting the Steam.App bundle file fixed the issue for them.
You can find the file under ~/Library/Application Support/Steam. So delete it from there and then launch Steam and it will redownload the file and fix the issue for you. Also, check out How to Fix Steam Disk Write Error?
2. Troubleshoot Steam app
If you are getting the “Could not connect to Steam network” error message, then there are a few things that you can try out.
Whenever you get a connection error, you get two options. You can either retry connection or stay in offline mode.
So do click on the retry connection option, and Steam will try to connect to your Account once again and try to fix the issue for you.
Alternatively, you can choose to stay offline and then from the menu select Account> Go Online > Connect to the Internet > Restart Steam. Also, do check if there is any steam update available by going to Steam> Check Updates.
There is also a pretty good chance that Steam is running some background process. To find this out, launch Activity Monitor > Then find Steam in the list of processes > Select Steam and click on the Stop button. After that, launch Steam app and see if it has fixed the issue.
Also, you can restart your Mac and see if you are still getting the Steam not opening on Mac issue. Check out Steam DLC Not Installed: Here’s How to?
3. Clear Steam cache files
There is also a good chance that Steam’s cache is creating connection errors. So it would be great if you delete the cache files and then run the program.
To delete Steam cache files, you can follow these below steps:
At first, you will need to go to Hard Drive > Library > Application Support and delete the steam folder.
After that, go to Folder and visit this path: ~/Library/Caches then ~/Library/Preferences and then ~/Library/Logs and delete Steam from all of them.
Finally, try running Steam again and it should fix the issue for you.
4. Reinstall Steam
In case, if nothing works out for you, then the last thing you can try out is to reinstall Steam. However, by simply moving Steam to the trash wouldn’t really uninstall the program. Instead, below are the steps that you have to follow:
- At first, open Applications, then drag Steam to the trash.
- Next, click on Go from the menu bar and hold down the option key until you see the library folder and then open it.
- Next, go to Library/Application Support/Steam.
- From there, delete the Steam data from your Mac without one of these two options:
- If you don’t want to lose your game data, then you have to delete all files and folders in/Steam EXCEPT FOR the /SteamApps folder (this contains your game downloads and any local save files.)
- If you’re removing all Steam data from your computer: delete the entire Steam folder.
- Finally, empty trash by selecting finder > Empty trash.
After that, you will need to download the Steam client from it’s official website and follow all the on-screen instructions and install it on Mac.
Final Words:
So that was a quick answer to your how to fix Steam not opening on mac issue. Now go ahead and try out these methods and see if it has helped you to fix the issue for you or not. In case if none of the above methods works for you, then I would recommend you to update your Mac or contact Steam’s support for further help.
