Every game on your PC, in one home that’s on your side

Your games are enormous. Sifter gets some of that space back.

Modern games run to hundreds of gigabytes, and the usual answer is to uninstall something. Sifter’s answer is to store them more efficiently instead. It uses the compression built into your filesystem — NTFS on Windows — which unpacks files as they’re read, underneath the game. Nothing is repacked, re-encoded, moved or deleted. Every byte a game, a launcher’s integrity check or an anti-cheat sees is byte-for-byte what shipped, so Steam’s “verify integrity of game files” still passes and installs still update normally.

It happens on its own. Sifter asks once, then works through your dormant games quietly — one at a time, spaced out, and never while you’ve been playing. Games you’ve opened in the last fortnight are left alone entirely; the ones you haven’t touched in months are compressed hardest, because load time doesn’t matter on a game you aren’t opening. You can switch it off in Settings, or undo the whole thing in one click.

Sifter measures your own library rather than quoting a figure — how much comes back depends on what your games are made of, since video and audio are already compressed and won’t shrink further. Games protected by kernel-level anti-cheat are skipped by default, and the estimate deliberately undershoots. Windows only. Linux was built and then withdrawn: btrfs compresses cleanly, and nothing puts it back short of rewriting your game files, which is a risk this feature won’t take. It returns if that changes.

On Linux, your Windows games come with you

Sifter launches your Steam library through Valve’s Proton — the same technology the Steam Deck runs on — so Windows-only titles play on Linux without you setting anything up. And because not everything runs, Sifter tells you before you hit Play: each installed game carries a compatibility badge — Native Linux, a ProtonDB community tier (Platinum to Borked), or Blocked by anti-cheat for the games whose developers haven’t enabled Linux support. No badge means no data — Sifter never guesses that a game “should work.”

Badges come from Sifter’s bundled snapshot of ProtonDB community reports and anti-cheat status — no live lookups, works offline. On Steam Deck, the Install via Flatpak link above is the smoothest route: open it in Desktop Mode and Discover handles the rest, with updates arriving like any other Flatpak. Prefer a single file? The AppImage works too — download it, then make it executable (right-click → Properties → Permissions → “Is executable”, or chmod +x) and run it. Use Heroic or Lutris? Your Epic & GOG installs show up in Sifter's library too, and launch through them — Heroic and Lutris keep handling the Wine/Proton side, exactly as they do today. Compatibility badges show Valve's official Deck Verified rating alongside the ProtonDB community tier, and because everything launches through Steam, controllers work via Steam Input — including on Deck.

Steam Deck Game Mode: to open Sifter without switching to Desktop Mode, add it to Steam once — in Desktop Mode, open Steam → Games → “Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library” and pick the Sifter AppImage. It then appears in your Game Mode library like any game.

One more step, and it matters: in that shortcut’s Properties, put --console in Launch Options. Sifter then opens straight into console mode — full screen, driven entirely by the controller — instead of the desktop interface, which is hard to use on a handheld. Without it you get the mouse-and-keyboard layout.

Your games aren’t the only software you use while playing. See what still needs a workaround — the overlay, the peripheral app, the fan curve — before you switch.

Windows says “Windows protected your PC”? That’s expected — here’s why.

Sifter’s installer is code-signed — you’ll see a real, verified publisher name on the dialog, not “Unknown publisher.” But a newly-issued signing identity has to build up SmartScreen reputation over many installs before Windows stops prompting, so you may still see this warning on a fresh download. It’s about how new the signature is, not about anything being wrong. To continue:

1. Click More info on the blue dialog.
2. Click Run anyway.

Sifter runs entirely on your machine — it reads your installed games locally and nothing about your library leaves your device. The warning fades on its own as more people install and the signature builds reputation.