Windows Perspective:

linux side

^ even after removing that drive, next time I open steam on Linux, it's back :(

THank you @kisak-valve - I agree that supporting shared folder libraries across both OSes is not reasonable to expect. We should focus on this to ensure folder libraries are NOT auto-added.

Since this is a bug/regression, can we get triage+release/scope?

I have the same issue. Every time I open Steam on Linux, it adds the NTFS folder to the library and attempts to re-download the games inside it. In addition, I have also observed that if Steam on Linux is downloading updates to games installed in the Linux partition and I remove the NTFS folder from the Linux Steam client, I do not even need to restart Steam on Linux for Steam to re-add the NTFS folder and queue the games for download. It seems to do this automatically after some time passes.
On my system, this started occurring after I manually added the NTFS partition to the Steam client on Linux. A workaround is to rename the Steam folder on the NTFS partition (say from "Windows Games" to "Windows Games2" and re-add it to the Steam client in Windows. This will prevent the Steam client in Linux from seeing the partition unless it is manually added again.

This is really annoying. I have fixed this for myself by renaming the mounting point.. this is no viable solution.
CC @kisak-valve

Valve, please fix.

I have this issue too. I accidentally added my NTFS library (which is on a fully separate hard drive), and no matter how many times I remove it, Steam finds it again and starts writing to my Windows library

How do we get attention on this? It's dumb. 6 months. (bug probably existed longer this is just since I reported it ...)

I have this same issue. Does reinstalling steam fix the issue?

One problem with this is, that it sometimes writes data to the disk that can not be handled by Windows and forces chkdsk on boot and that there is unclear behavior if I have installed a game on my Linux library and on the Windows one. Running Proton on NTFS is a bad idea, if you don't use symbolic links from a Linux compatible FS. It corrupts the NTFS partition.

I have this same issue. Does reinstalling steam fix the issue?
If you have tested it, please give us some feedback here.

I have this same issue. Does reinstalling steam fix the issue?
If you have tested it, please give us some feedback here.

I tried to reinstall steam and it didn't fix the issue.

^ even after removing that drive, next time I open steam on Linux, it's back :(

Open the following file with text editor:

• ~/.steam/debian-installation/config/libraryfolders.vdf
• ~/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf

Then you will find all steam library folder in these files, delete what you want to remove and save changes.

Thanks @imcloudfloating. This worked for me on Arch; the folders were under ~/.steam/root/

This seems to imply that Steam just needs to properly manipulate those files when users edit library folders in settings.

Prior to the fix for me, Steam would just randomly redetect the removed folders, even without restarting Steam.

I am running into this issue as well. I have two Steam Libraries, one on my root partition and a second one on another drive. I tried removing the second library from the Storage tab in settings but it always reappears whenever I restart Steam.

ifyun's workaround seems to work though.

I have the same issue. Every time I open Steam on Linux, it adds the NTFS folder to the library and attempts to re-download the games inside it. In addition, I have also observed that if Steam on Linux is downloading updates to games installed in the Linux partition and I remove the NTFS folder from the Linux Steam client, I do not even need to restart Steam on Linux for Steam to re-add the NTFS folder and queue the games for download. It seems to do this automatically after some time passes. On my system, this started occurring after I manually added the NTFS partition to the Steam client on Linux. A workaround is to rename the Steam folder on the NTFS partition (say from "Windows Games" to "Windows Games2" and re-add it to the Steam client in Windows. This will prevent the Steam client in Linux from seeing the partition unless it is manually added again.

Clever fix, thank you.

This bug has affected me for months now. It's an annoying one.
The workaround from @ifyun is what saved me, thanks man!

At this point, since this is taking so long, I believe the clear solution is for the steam client to ensure the entries from both libraryfolders.vdf are removed after the storage is removed by the user.

This will solve the attempts to update apps from wrong libraries and also will help ensure the folder is not auto added.

I understand that things are not so simple, but for us users it's frustrating seeing such an annoying bug to persist for so long when we know there's lots of effort being put every day into this amazing software.

for my installation on Ubuntu 24.04:

~/.steam/steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf
~/.steam/steam/config/libraryfolders.vdf

oke i found out what is going on now and its steam being dum on linux it seems

in the steam folder -> steamapps there is a file called libraryfolders.vdf

i tuns out this is where steam save all existing library you added before thats fine and all but if i go in steam and delete a library it does not update this file to reflect that so next time you boot up steam it checks that file again and just re-adds the library

STEAM!!!!

you can open it in a text editor and just delete the library's

this how it needs to look for libraryfolders.vdf

"libraryfolders"
{
	"0"
	{
		"path"		"/home/ashe/.local/share/Steam"
		"label"		""
		"contentid"		"2311953306312319195"
		"totalsize"		"0"
		"update_clean_bytes_tally"		"2147525128"
		"time_last_update_verified"		"1763171630"
		"apps"
		{
			"228980"		"1170806743"
			"1361210"		"85993306546"
			"1628350"		"781974643"
		}
	}
}

as you can see it show 1 library

steam update's this file wen you add a library but not wen you remove it!!!! and next time you boot up steam its gone check this file again.....

so this seems to be a bug in the steam UI that is not updating the libraryfolders.vdf wen you remove a library

Having the same problem, solved it by removing the "1"{...} entry for the other library. Be warned: There are multiple copies of libraryfolders.vdf:

• /home/$USER/local/share/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf - Editing this solved the problem.
• /home/$USER/.local/share/Steam/config/libraryfolders.vdf - Does nothing, probably a downstream copy of some sort.
• /home/USER/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/STEAM_GAME_ID/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/libraryfolders.vdf - Compatibility layers created for individual games, likely will not contain the problem-library unless that's how they were launched.

so this seems to be a bug in the steam UI

Yeah, as it it adds to the config file, but never removes.

As some people said here, it is not recommended to share libraries between windows and linux.
I know that, THAT'S WHY I WANTED TO REMOVE THE LIBRARY.
It doesn't help if it keeps coming back.

This has NOT been fixed and is an unacceptable bug. But yes, removing the entries from all libraryfolders.vdf files worked.
Make sure to use your file browser to search for ALL occurrences of that file, for me, there were FIVE.

Another thing, when you don't mount the drive, it does not show up in the libraries setting. This is bad, because it would be nice if you could unmount the drive, open steam, then go to the settings and remove it, that way steam doesn't immediately update every game on the drive. Since all it has to do is remove entries from its config, the drive should not have to be mounted.

Still running into the issue after recently changing over from Windows to Ubuntu 4 years after the original complaint here. I appreciate the people who pointed out ways to manually fix this, as the bug was incredibly frustrating.