How to Manage Too Many PC Game Launchers

Open the system tray on an average gaming PC and count the icons. On mine, before I cleaned up, there were six game launchers: Steam, Epic Games, EA app, Ubisoft Connect, Battle.net and GOG Galaxy, all starting with Windows and together using about 1.1 GB of RAM before I had opened a single game. If you have collected launchers the way most of us have, through free giveaways and one exclusive here or there, learning to manage PC game launchers properly saves memory, boot time and a surprising amount of disk space.

You do not need to give up any library. You need a clear rule for which launchers run, when they update and where their games live. Here is the setup I settled on after a month of testing on a mid-range machine with 16 GB of RAM.

What Each Extra Launcher Actually Costs

Launchers are not just shortcuts. Most run a web-based interface, a background update service and sometimes an overlay that hooks into every game. I measured idle use on my system with only the launcher open and minimised.

Figures vary with version and library size, so treat them as a rough guide. On a 32 GB machine this barely matters. On 16 GB, running a modern open-world game alongside five idle launchers can push you into paging, which shows up as stutter rather than lower average FPS. If you have not checked this before, our guide to reading an FPS overlay shows how to spot memory-related hitches.

Stop Launchers From Starting With Windows

This single change gave me back the most. Each launcher defaults to auto-start, and few people ever switch it off.

1. Open each launcher's settings and untick the option to run at startup. In Steam it sits under Settings, Interface. In Epic it is under Settings, Run When My Computer Starts.
2. Then open Task Manager, go to Startup apps, and disable any launcher still listed. Some re-enable themselves after updates, so check again after a month.
3. Also untick "minimise to tray on close" where offered. When you close a launcher, it should really close.

My cold boot to a usable desktop dropped from around 48 seconds to 31. The launchers you need open themselves when you start a game anyway. For other quiet resource users, see the background apps quietly slowing down your PC.

Manage PC Game Launchers Around One Primary Store

Decide which store holds most of your library and where you buy new games. For most players that is Steam. That launcher may auto-start if you like; every other one opens only when you play something from it.

Ask yourself when you last launched a game from each secondary store. If the answer is over six months, uninstall the launcher. Your purchases stay tied to your account, and you can reinstall in five minutes when you want a game again. Many people keep Epic installed only to claim free weekly games, but you can claim them through the website in a browser without the launcher running at all.

Why I Do Not Recommend Adding Steam Shortcuts for Everything

A popular tip is to add every non-Steam game to your Steam library as a shortcut, so you have one place to click. It looks tidy. In practice it often makes things worse.

When you launch an EA or Ubisoft game through a Steam shortcut, Steam starts, then the publisher launcher starts, then the game starts. You now have two overlays competing, two sets of hotkeys and a higher chance of the controller input getting confused. Some games also fail to report playtime correctly or trigger anti-cheat warnings when wrapped twice.

Shortcuts are fine for DRM-free GOG games or older titles that run on their own. For anything that requires its publisher's launcher, launch it from that launcher directly. Tidiness is not worth a broken controller mid-match.

Use a Unified Library App Carefully

Tools such as GOG Galaxy and Playnite pull all your libraries into one view. They are genuinely useful for browsing a scattered collection and tracking what you own, especially if your backlog spans five stores, which is common for anyone who buys during seasonal sales.

What they do well

• One search box across every store.
• Combined playtime and completion tracking.
• Playnite in particular is lightweight and open source.

What they do not change

A unified library still has to call each store's launcher to start most games. It hides the clutter; it does not remove it. So pair it with the startup changes above rather than treating it as a fix on its own.

Keep Game Files Organised Across Drives

Every launcher wants its own install folder, and by default most of them choose the C drive. That is how a 1 TB SSD fills up with no obvious culprit.

• Create one top-level folder on your games drive, for example D:\Games, with a subfolder per launcher.
• Set each launcher's default install path to its subfolder before downloading anything new.
• Use Steam's built-in Storage manager to move existing games between drives without redownloading.
• Clear each launcher's download cache once every few months; Epic and EA caches in particular can grow to several gigabytes.

If space is already tight, the steps in freeing up storage without deleting games work well alongside this layout.

FAQ

Is it safe to uninstall a game launcher if I have games on it?

Yes. Your games are tied to your account, not the launcher installation. Uninstalling the launcher usually removes its installed games too, so only do it for stores you are not currently playing from.

How many PC game launchers should I keep installed?

Keep the ones you have opened in the last six months. For most players that means one primary launcher plus one or two others, with only the primary allowed to start with Windows.

Do launchers lower FPS while a game is running?

Idle launchers rarely cut average FPS much on a well-equipped PC. The bigger effect is on systems with 16 GB of RAM or less, where background memory use can cause stutter and longer load times.

A Fifteen Minute Cleanup to Do Tonight

Turn off auto-start in every launcher, disable any that remain in Task Manager, uninstall the ones you have not opened since spring, and set each install path to a single games folder. Restart and compare your boot time and idle RAM. Most people get back a few hundred megabytes and several seconds, and the tray finally looks like it belongs to you.