A desktop app for browsing Steam game recordings and screenshots. Games on the left, that game's clips and screenshots on the right, with a built-in player.
Windows 11. Nothing else to install: ffmpeg ships with the app.
Download the installer from Releases and run it. It installs per user, so no admin prompt.
The build is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn on first run. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
Steam clips are not video files, so ffmpeg does the work of turning them into
something playable. A copy is bundled in the installer, under
resources fmpeg in the install folder, and is used in preference to any
ffmpeg already on PATH. Settings shows which one is in use and can be pointed
at a different build.
The bundled binary is the LGPL build from BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds. Clips are stream-copied rather than re-encoded, so nothing beyond LGPL is needed.
Steam does not save a clip as a video file. It saves a DASH stream: a
session.mpd manifest plus separate video and audio fragment streams
(init-stream0.m4s, chunk-stream0-00001.m4s, and so on). The first time a
clip is played it is stream-copied into a single MP4 and cached. Nothing is
re-encoded, so the wait is short even for 4K, and replays are instant.
Clips that span more than one capture session are joined in order. Clips with no video segments are listed and marked unplayable.
Steam records in HEVC, which Windows 11 decodes through Media Foundation.
Both layouts work: a flat folder of appid_date_n.png files, and Steam's own
per-game <appid>/screenshots/ tree. Thumbnails are generated as needed, since
Steam's own are 200px wide and uncompressed originals can be tens of megabytes.
If the same screenshot turns up in more than one scanned folder, the duplicate is dropped and the uncompressed original kept.
Each of recordings and screenshots can follow Steam or use custom folders. "Steam default" reads the paths out of the Steam config:
| Read from | |
|---|---|
| Recordings | GameRecording/BackgroundRecordPath in localconfig.vdf |
| Screenshots | userdata/<id>/760/remote |
Move a folder in Steam and the default follows it. Refresh re-reads the
config without restarting the app. Steam writes localconfig.vdf periodically
and on exit, so a change made seconds ago may not be on disk yet.
Custom folder takes a list, so media split across drives is scanned together. Where more than one drive is in play, a drive filter appears and cards are badged with the drive they came from.
If Steam is also set to keep uncompressed screenshots somewhere
(InGameOverlayScreenshotSaveUncompressedPath), Settings offers that folder as
a one-click addition.
All Media lists every clip and screenshot together, newest first, labelled with the game it belongs to. Filters for drive, date and sort sit above the list, along with a size slider for the previews.
Game names and artwork come from the local Steam install first
(appinfo.vdf, appmanifest_*.acf, librarycache), falling back to the Steam
store for anything missing. Lookups are cached and can be turned off in
Settings. Shift-clicking Refresh re-resolves them.
| On a | |
|---|---|
| Screenshot | Copy to Clipboard, Save As, Show in Explorer |
| Clip | Export Video, Show in Explorer |
Copying works from the grid or the open viewer. Formats the clipboard cannot take directly, such as AVIF, are converted first.
Exporting a clip prepares it if it is not already cached, then saves the MP4 wherever you choose.
| Key | |
|---|---|
/ |
focus the game filter |
Esc |
close the player, viewer or settings |
← → |
previous / next |
Space |
play / pause |
J L |
back / forward 5s |
F |
fullscreen |
Prepared MP4s and thumbnails live in %APPDATA%\Steam Media Viewer\cache. A
prepared clip is the same size as its source, so the cache has a size limit
(12 GB by default) and drops the least recently played. The limit and a clear
button are in Settings.
Settings shows the installed version and a Check for Updates button, which compares the latest release tag against the running version. A quiet check also runs at launch. When an update exists the button opens the release page.
Releases are tagged v<version> to match package.json.
npm run distnpm run fetch-ffmpeg runs first and downloads the ffmpeg binary into
vendor/ffmpeg if it is not already there. It is too large to keep in the
repository, so it is fetched at build time.
Produces dist/Steam-Media-Viewer-Setup-<version>.exe, a per-user installer
with shortcuts and an uninstaller. Uninstalling leaves
%APPDATA%\Steam Media Viewer in place so settings and cached clips survive a
reinstall.
npm run pack builds to dist/win-unpacked without an installer.
npm install
npm start # run from source
npm run verify # drives the app and checks it still works
npm run capture # screenshots each screen into ./shots
npm run icon # rebuild build/icon.ico from build/icon.svgsrc/main/ main process: filesystem and ffmpeg
appinfo.js parser for Steam's binary appcache/appinfo.vdf
vdf.js parser for Steam's text KeyValues files
steam.js app id to name and artwork, cached on disk
scanner.js scanners for both media trees
media.js DASH to MP4 stream copy, thumbnails, cache eviction
settings.js settings.json
updater.js release check
main.js window, IPC, scan orchestration
preload.js renderer bridge
src/renderer/ UI
tools/ dev helpers
MIT. See LICENSE.
Steam is a trademark of Valve Corporation. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Valve.