SteamID
A SteamID is a unique identifier used to identify a Steam account. It is also used to refer to a user's Steam Community profile page.
Contents
Format
As Represented Textually
SteamIDs follow a fairly simple format when represented textually: "STEAM_X:Y:Z," where X, Y, and Z are integers. In select cases, "STEAM_ID_PENDING" or "UNKNOWN" are used (see the section "Types of Steam Accounts" for more details).
- X represents the "Universe" the steam account belongs to.
- Y is part of the ID number for the account. Y is either 0 or 1.
- Z is the "account number").
Another commonly used representation, referred to as a "Steam3 ID," is represented as: "[letter:1:W]". Many games will use this format for player SteamIDs (e.g., [U:1:1234]) when printed from a status command for example.
As Represented in Computer Programs
When represented internally in computer programs, the X, Y, and Z components (see the section titled "As Represented Textually") are all packed into a 64-bit data structure.
- The lowest bit represents Y.
- The next 31 bits represent the account number.
- The next 20 bits represent the instance of the account. It is usually set to 1 for user accounts.
- The next 4 bits represent the type of account.
- The next 8 bits represent the "Universe" the steam account belongs to.
Universes Available for Steam Accounts
There are 6 universes of Steam accounts.
| Number | Type |
|---|---|
| 0 | Individual / Unspecified |
| 1 | Public |
| 2 | Beta |
| 3 | Internal |
| 4 | Dev |
| 5 | RC |
Note:Universes 0 to 3 are common, 4 Dev not exist in all games, 5 RC is removed out from some source files "// no such universe anymore"Types of Steam Accounts
There are ten known account types for a Steam account, of which 4 can be created today.
| Number | Letter | Type | Can Be Used? | URL Path (default / custom) | SteamID64 Identifier | Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | I / i | Invalid | No | |||
| 1 | U | Individual | Yes | profiles / id | 0x0110000100000000 | // single user account |
| 2 | M | Multiseat | Yes | // multiseat (e.g. cybercafe) account | ||
| 3 | G | GameServer | Yes | // game server account | ||
| 4 | A | AnonGameServer | Yes | // anonymous game server account | ||
| 5 | P | Pending | No | // pending | ||
| 6 | C | ContentServer | Unknown | // content server | ||
| 7 | g | Clan | Yes | groups / gid | 0x0170000000000000 | |
| 8 | T / L / c | Chat | Yes | |||
| 9 | P2P SuperSeeder | No | // Fake SteamID for local PSN account on PS3 or Live account on 360, etc. | |||
| 10 | a | AnonUser | Yes |
Users of an "Individual" account are temporarily referred to as having a "Pending" account, which has a textual representation of "STEAM_ID_PENDING" until their account credentials are verified with Steam's authentication servers, a process usually complete by the time a server is fully connected to. Accounts of the type "Invalid" have a textual representation of "UNKNOWN" and are used for bots and accounts which do not belong to another class.
Multi-user chats use the "T" character. Steam group (clan) chats use the "c" character. Steam lobbies use Chat IDs and use the "L" character.
Steam ID as a Steam Community ID
A Steam ID can be converted to Steam Community ID for use on the Steam Community website.
Let X, Y and Z constants be defined by the SteamID: STEAM_X:Y:Z.
There are 2 methods of conversion:
- For 32-bit systems
- Using the formula W=Z*2+Y, a SteamID can be converted to the following link:
- http or https://steamcommunity.com/path/[letter:1:W]
- The account type letter can be found in the table above. The path can be found in the same place after the slash symbol.
- Example: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/[U:1:132276035]
- Example: http://steamcommunity.com/gid/[g:1:4]
- For 64-bit systems
- Let V be SteamID64 identifier of the account type (can be found in the table above in hexadecimal format).
- Using the formula W=Z*2+V+Y, a SteamID can be converted to the following link:
- http or https://steamcommunity.com/path/W
- As for the 32-bit method, the path can be found in the table above, again after the slash.
- Example: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960287930
Steam Community ID as a Steam ID
Using the reverse methods, a Community ID can be converted to a regular SteamID. The value of Z can be retrieved by checking parity of the number W: if it's even, Y is 0, if it's odd, Y is 1 (shortly, Y is the remainder of division of W by 2, or the result of binary AND operation with number 1).
The SteamID64 (64-bit SteamID) of Steam Community members can be found in several places:
- Players:
- In profile->steamID64 element of profile XML schema (can be opened by appending ?xml=1 to profile URL).
- In the "Add to your friends list" link (not recommended to be used in applications that login with username and password).
- Groups: in the "Enter chat room" link.
Caveat About Cyber Café Accounts
Although it would appear sensible for Valve to put all cybercafé account SteamIDs in their own universe, this has not been done. Instead, cybercafé accounts get SteamIDs in the same universe as user accounts, typically from a large pool of SteamIDs where the unique ID part lies within the range 7000000 and 8000000. There are also non-cybercafé accounts within this range and cybercafé accounts outside of this range.
SteamID Uses
Aside from the obvious elements of identifying (uniquely) an account, its type and the domain (universe) it belongs to, SteamIDs can be used to approximately determine when the user associated with the SteamID first created that Steam account. Lower values of 'Z' in the format described above (i.e. the account number) indicate an account made further in the past to one with a higher value. For example, a SteamID like STEAM_0:0:1234 would mean that the user signed up for their Steam account a long time before a user with a SteamID such as STEAM_0:0:12341111.
The value of X is 0 in VALVe's 
GoldSrc and 
Source Orange Box Engine games (such as 
Counter-Strike and 
Counter-Strike: Source), but newer Valve games (such as 
Left 4 Dead, 
Alien Swarm, and 
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) have 1 as a value of X. The value of Y is either 0 or 1 and is part of the Account ID as described above. This bit is used to indicate which authentication server was used by that account.
External links
- SteamID.co.uk - Tools to look up players, items, games, friends, groups, and more.
- SteamIDFinder.com - Tool to let players quickly look up their SteamID without launching a game.
- SteamID.com - Search engine to lookup competitive Counter-Strike players by their SteamID.
- SteamDB.info - Lookup a SteamID and calculate the value of any Steam account, also shows all conversions of the SteamID.
- VACBanned.com - Search engine to lookup the VAC status of a SteamID, and add the banned SteamIDs to a database.
