I have both auto-login and saved password, yet I'm never able to reach offline mode, unless my internet disappears when I have the online mode turned on and active.

It's slightly weird that people keep having these different experiences.

I have never had to use steams offline mode for a long period, but its worked flawlessly for me. I use to take my laptop to work and everyday I would use it in offline mode( i did this for over a year, I would periodically go online to add games or mods ect) , it never failed except once when I was messing with an exe. file and I had to go online to reset it. Lately when we have had random power outages it has worked great.

Hah! The time may come when you won't even own your life. So chill out :-) .
Besides, if Skyrim doesn't work you can always go fishing.

You want to go in offline mode?

1. Double-click on the Steam icon on your desktop, program launches.
2. What game(s) you want to have available when going offline? Fire the game(s) up once, if you haven't started/played them in some time, then just exit the game altogether.
3. Click on the "Steam" tab, upper left corner, then "go offline". Steam will say it will have to save, and restart in offline mode. Cool, let it do it.
4. Steam should restart on its own, in offline mode. You won't be able to see the store page, but you should be able to play the game.
5. Whenever you want to exit Steam, always use "Steam" -> "Exit".

Seriously, I've tried it in 3 different computers, and it always worked like a charm and without problems.

A few weeks ago, StingingVelvet also reported that he had set Steam in offline mode since January when he went to Georgia and up until June/July, it didn't ask him to log-in.

Well yes, that is great, except for when your internet connection crashes. You're pretty much screwed when not planning being offline ahead, well at least I know I always am.

Steam's Offline mode is certainly not without it problems but generally it certainly works.

A few main problems though.

1. Do NOT shut down Windows with Steam running. A forum poster found that that can cut off steam's shutdown process prematurely, which causes a file to mess up, which forces the program to *have* to connect to fix Steam the next time it starts up.

Fix, manually close Steam before shutting down your computer.

2. If your internet is down, make sure you have no active network going. IE, if you're behind a router, that can still prevent Steam from going into offline mode, despite internet not working. Same with internet being down but not completely.

Fix, pull your internet cable or shut down your internet/network or turn off your router before trying to connect.

These things are on top of the obvious ones of course like saving your account credentials and having started the game while online at least *once*.

Except, I can pull my cable just fine, with Steam running, or with Steam not running, and in both cases I'll be able to get into offline mode. Only situations where it doesn't work for me is when there's something wrong already to begin with, or in worst case I guess, if it'd cut off internet during an update of Steam or a game or something (hasn't happened for me)

a post for Forcing Steam's Offline Mode
Posting this here because I've seen users mention it as a troubleshooting solution, but never clearly explaining 'how' for those who don't know.

NOTE: This is instruction for Windows 7
NOTE 2: You will need your account credentials saved to the computer.
NOTE 2.5:This may not work for every single user.

Okay so we know that Steam's offline mode is not meant to work without switching to it from an online state, which is totally bogus. What we need to do, then, is to change the config to force offline mode. Here's what you do.

First, make sure you exit Steam completely

1. Open up a new notepad document
2. Copy and paste the following lines into the document:

BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
ForceOfflineMode=enable

3. Go to File > Save As...
- Under the "Save as type:" dropdown, select "All Files"
- Under "File Name" name the document "steam.cfg" (WITHOUT QUOTATIONS)
- Select file location as desktop
4. Right click the newly created file, select "Properties" and select the check-box for "Read-only" under the "General" tab (should be the first tab that comes up under "Properties")
5. Now move the config file into the same folder as the "steam.exe" file (By Default: C: > Program Files (x86) > Steam).
6. Now, Steam should force itself into offline mode every time it starts (you will have to select "START IN OFFLINE MODE" when you start Steam). When you want to go back online, simply exit Steam, then remove the file from the Steam directory, and restart online.
TIP: Leave the config file on your desktop so you can move it to your Steam folder whenever you must force offline mode.


*this was copied from the steam forum I actually have not tried this but copied it in case I ran into a situation where I would be without the internet for a while.

The problem his "killing the Steam process" instead of shutting it down. At least that was always the problem with mine. On the laptop that is especially bad, as going into sleep mode/"closing the laptop" seems to cause the same problem.

As long as you always remember to properly close Steam, there aren't any problems (which I hardly do, as I simply always shut down windows directly)

Quite likely. Still, seems like a huge design hole to me.

Steam itself is a "huge design hole". Honestly, they offer a great service, but their client is horrible. I have absolutely no clue about programming, but the whole thing feels like it was ten years old and just got "parts slapped on". Their "browser" is a joke. That is what I like about uPlay, for everything you might need a browser, they actually use your browser.

Generally speaking, games on CD and DVD have required online activation only since 2008 (notable exceptions being Half-Life 2, Earth 2160), so the great irony is that buying used games gets you the better deal these days.

You can effectively create the same experience with GOG games. As soon as I buy games off GOG, they get burned onto 2 DVDs or 2 CDs (one as a backup), labelled using LightScribe, the DVD inlay printed and the whole lot stored on my shelf. That way, you can refer to your games collection again and again without ever having to need to connect to the internet.

I know others use external hard drives, but I find them to be quite unreliable.

That is why I prefer the internet to do my backups ;-P

I was offline for 6 months overseas and never had a problem. So it takes longer than that.