Download your Steam Windows Game files on Mac

Install «Homebrew» on macOS

• Follow the instructions on the Homebrew-website to install.

Install the «SteamCMD» tool

• Once Homebrew was successfully installed, open the Terminal.app – or whatever is your preferred terminal emulator.
• Paste & execute the following command to install SteamCMD for macOS using Homebrew:

brew install --cask steamcmd

[TL;DR] One Terminal command with all instructions for SteamCMD

steamcmd +@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows +force_install_dir "/folder/path/to/Game" +login {steam-user} {steam-password} +app_update {steam-game-id} validate

Detailed step-by-step instructions

For below example how to install a Mac unsupported game’s files, I am using «Unreal Tournament: Game of The Year Edition» from Steam.

• Steam Game ID (see Store page URL): 13240
• Game name (directory): UT99-GOTY

1. Obtain the Steam Game ID / Steam Application ID for the desired game

The easiest way to obtain the game’s ID from the Steam database is to use its Steam Store URL: https://store.steampowered.com/app/{game-id}/{game-name}/

Alternatively you can also search for it in the SteamDB Apps list.

2. In Finder create a folder for downloading the game files into

Anywhere in Finder or on a drive/volume create a new folder for the game. For example I created this: ~/Downloads/UT99-GOTY/

3. Start the SteamCMD tool in Terminal.app and login to your Steam account

• Open the Terminal.app and type the following command to load SteamCMD:

steamcmd

• Once the tool has loaded (showing: the prompt Steam>), login to your Steam Account by typing:

login <your-username>

• Confirm & your will be prompted for your Steam password now
• Type it in and confirm. If you have 2-Factor Authentication enabled, you will now also be prompted to confirm the 2FA code.

4. Tell SteamCMD to emulate the Windows platform (or Linux)

• Type the following command to suggest SteamCMD that you are on Windows, enabling the game file downloading:

@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows

Note: if you are not applying this command, you will later see an
«ERROR! Failed to install app (Invalid platform)»

5. Define the Finder folder path where to download the files to

• Best is to copy – in Finder – the path to the folder where the files should be downloaded to.
• When you have this, type the following command to set the game files download path:

force_install_dir "/finder/folder/path/"

In my example this would be: force_install_dir "~/Downloads/UT99-GOTY/"

6. Finally: trigger the game download using the game’s Steam ID

• With the Steam Game ID at hands, incorporate it when typing the following command to initiate the game files download now:

app_update {steam-game-id} validate

In my example this would be: app_update 13240 validate

That’s it! ✨ If everything worked – and you properly own the game on Steam – the download starts & once completed you can find the downloaded game files in the given folder.

⚠️ If it didn’t work or your experience problems or errors, check out the official «Known Issues» and their corresponding solutions on the SteamCMD Wiki page.