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How to Accept a Steam Gift

Somebody has sent you a game and, as far as you can tell, nothing has happened. Here's exactly where the gift is, what to click, and the deadline nobody mentions.

By Stephen V.Last updated How we pick

Steam gifting works, but it is quiet about it. There’s no big banner and no wrapped box on the front page — a gift arrives as an email and a small notification inside the Steam client, and if you weren’t expecting either, both are easy to miss entirely.

Here is the whole process, in order, followed by the three things that go wrong.

Accepting a gift, step by step

  1. Look in two places. Valve sends the recipient an email containing a link that opens Steam to redeem the gift, and puts a notification in the Steam client itself saying a new gift has arrived. Either one takes you to the same screen.
  2. Sign in as the right account. A gift is tied to the Steam account it was sent to. If you have more than one account — an old one, a family one — make sure you’re signed into the one your friend chose.
  3. Click Accept Gift. Steam offers both Accept Gift and Decline Gift. Accepting adds the game permanently to that account.
  4. Install it from your library. Once accepted, it sits alongside everything else you own. Nothing else needs redeeming.

How to accept a friend’s gift on Steam

If the gift was sent to your Steam account by someone on your friends list, the notification inside the Steam client is the fastest way in: open Steam, click the notification, and choose Accept Gift. The email Valve sends at the same time leads to the same screen, so use whichever you spot first.

Gifts from a friend are also the only ones that can be scheduled for a future date. Steam delivers a scheduled gift in your time zone rather than the sender’s, so a birthday gift lands on your birthday, not theirs.

If the gift came to your email instead

Since Valve’s July 2026 gifting update, a game or a digital gift card can be sent straight to an email address — and bought by somebody who has no Steam account at all. If that’s what happened, there will be nothing waiting inside the Steam client, because the gift isn’t attached to an account yet.

Open the email from Steam and click the link in it. That link is what attaches the gift: it takes you to Steam, asks you to sign in to whichever account you want the game on, and then shows the Accept Gift button. The thirty-day deadline below applies to email gifts too, so it’s worth doing straight away rather than filing the email.

The thirty-day deadline

This is the part people don’t know: a gift left unaccepted for thirty days is canceled automatically, and the money goes back to whoever sent it.

That’s a sensible safety net rather than a trap — it means a gift sent to a dormant account doesn’t vanish into nothing. But if you’ve been meaning to get around to it, get around to it. Once the gift has been accepted, the game is permanently attached to the account that redeemed it.

Three things that go wrong

The gift was scheduled for later. Steam lets the sender pick a future delivery date, and the gift genuinely does not exist until that moment arrives — delivered in your time zone rather than theirs. If a friend says they’ve sent something and you can’t see it, ask whether they scheduled it for the day itself.

It went to a different account. Old accounts, second accounts, an account made years ago with a forgotten email. The gift is where the sender pointed it, not where you happen to be signed in.

The email landed in spam. Common, and the reason plenty of people never find out a gift arrived at all. If the notification isn’t in Steam either, it’s worth a look in the junk folder before assuming something has broken.

If you already own the game

Decline it, and say so. Declining returns the gift to the sender rather than destroying it, and Valve’s refund policy covers unredeemed gifts inside the standard fourteen-day window — so a quick decline is the version of this that gets your friend their money back.

Leaving it sitting there works too, eventually, since it cancels itself after thirty days. But by then the refund window may have moved on, and the sender is left wondering whether you noticed at all.

What about privacy?

Accepting a gift is a transaction between you and the person who sent it. What other people can see about your library and your recent activity is a separate setting entirely — Steam’s profile privacy options control whether your games and activity are public, friends-only or private, and they apply to everything you own rather than to gifts specifically.

If you’d rather a present didn’t show up in a public activity feed, that setting is the thing to change, and Valve’s own privacy page in the sources below walks through each option.

If you’re the one doing the sending

The mirror image of this page is our how to gift a game on Steam guide, which covers all four routes as they work now: to a Steam friend, to an email address, straight from a shared wishlist, or as a game code you hand over yourself. If the person you want to send to isn’t on your friends list, the non-friend version compares those options for a surprise. And if you’d rather send credit than pick a game, our gaming gift cards buying guide covers which store cards are worth buying and where.

Frequently asked questions

Where does a Steam gift actually appear?

In two places: an email with a link that opens Steam to redeem it, and a notification inside the Steam client itself. There's no separate inbox to hunt through — the notification in Steam is the thing to look for, and it carries the Accept Gift and Decline Gift buttons.

How long do I have to accept a Steam gift?

Thirty days from delivery. If you take no action in that time, Valve automatically cancels the gift and refunds the person who bought it — so an ignored gift costs the sender nothing but does mean the present is gone.

I can't find the gift — what now?

Check three things. First, that you're signed into the account the gift was sent to, since gifts are tied to a specific account. Second, your email spam folder, because the notification email is the usual route people find it by. Third, whether the sender scheduled the delivery for a later date — a scheduled gift doesn't exist until that date and time arrives.

Can I accept a Steam gift without my friends seeing it?

Accepting a gift is between you and the sender, but what your Steam profile shows about your games and activity is controlled separately, in your profile privacy settings. If you'd rather your library or your recent activity wasn't public, that's the place to change it — Valve's own profile privacy page explains each option.

What happens if I decline a gift?

Declining returns the gift to the sender rather than deleting it, and Valve's refund rules cover unredeemed gifts within the standard fourteen-day, under-two-hours window. If you already own the game, declining is the polite option — it lets them get their money back rather than leaving it unused.

I already own the game — can I swap it?

Not directly. Steam gifts are for a specific game, and there's no exchange mechanism. The practical route is to decline it and tell the sender, so they can refund it within the refund window and choose something else. Leaving it unaccepted works too, but it takes thirty days.

Can a gift be sent to me if we aren't Steam friends?

Yes, since Valve's gifting update of July 22, 2026. A gift can be sent to your email address rather than your Steam account, and can be bought by someone with no Steam account at all through guest checkout. The email carries a link that lets you sign in and accept it. Two limits apply to that route: an email gift can't be scheduled for a future date, and the sender has to live in the same country as you.

How do I accept a Steam gift that came to my email?

Open the email from Steam and click the link inside it. That link takes you to Steam and asks you to sign in to the account you want the game on, then shows the Accept Gift button. The same thirty-day deadline applies, so don't leave it sitting in an inbox.

Sources

  • Steam News — Gifting made easier (Valve, July 22, 2026) — Valve's own announcement of the current gifting rules: guest checkout — added in 2024 for digital gift cards and hardware — “can now be used to buy any game on Steam”, so someone with no Steam account can send one; “both digital gift cards and games can now be sent directly to email recipients”, with the email carrying a link to sign in and accept; “any gift email not accepted within 30 days will be automatically refunded, so they cannot be scheduled for future delivery” and “the recipient of the gift must also live in the same country as the purchaser”; games can be gifted across regions to someone on your friends list, with Steam matching “the increased price in your friend's region at checkout”; and gifts can be sent straight from a shared wishlist link, where “you no longer need to be friends on Steam to send gifts” (accessed September 6, 2026)
  • Steam Support — Steam Gifts — Valve's gifting article on the receiving end: the recipient chooses Accept Gift or Decline Gift, an accepted gift is added straight to their library, someone declining can optionally attach a note and Valve emails the sender either way, and a gift the recipient takes no action on is automatically canceled after 30 days with the purchase refunded to the sender (accessed September 6, 2026)
  • Steam Support — Steam Gifts (sending and accepting) — Valve's own gifting article: delivery of a gift sent to a Steam friend can be scheduled for a future date and arrives in the recipient's time zone, the recipient gets an email link plus an in-client notification and must click Accept Gift or Decline Gift, and an unaccepted gift is automatically canceled and refunded after 30 days. The friends-list-only rule this article described when we read it on 2026-08-18 was lifted by Valve's gifting update of July 22, 2026, listed below (accessed August 18, 2026)
  • Steam Support — Steam Gifts — Valve's own guidance on Steam gifting: you mark the game 'This is a gift' in the cart, choose who it goes to, and they receive an email plus an in-client notification to accept it. Read 2026-07-22, when a gift could only go to someone on your Steam friends list — that restriction was lifted by Valve's gifting update of July 22, 2026, listed below (accessed July 22, 2026)
  • Steam — Refunds — Valve's refund policy: refunds are offered within two weeks of purchase and under two hours of playtime; unredeemed gifts can be refunded inside that window, a redeemed gift can be refunded on the same terms if the recipient starts the request, and the money returns to whoever paid (accessed August 18, 2026)
  • Steam Support — Steam Profile Privacy — Valve's own explanation of the profile privacy options that control who can see a Steam account's games and activity (accessed August 18, 2026)

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