How to add friends on Steam from PC or with your Smart phone

 Steam is a very practical application, as it allows you to have all your favorite games on a single platform, in addition to having a powerful store with countless titles. Another incentive is the ease of adding friends, chatting with them, and competing against each other!

There are several ways to add friends and you can do it from your PC or your cell phone. It is possible that you have problems with some of the methods and for that reason, Steam provides us with these different ways so that you can play with your friends. With this guide, learn what these ways are!

Note: You cannot send friend requests on Steam without paying. You must have purchased a game or added money to your Steam wallet worth $5 in US dollars (or the equivalent in your currency). If you do not meet such requirements, you will not be able to add friends. However, they will still be able to send you friend requests if they meet the requirement. We will talk about this topic later.

How to add friends from the PC application

As we have already said, there are different methodologies to add friends. Based on our experience, we suggest adding friends using the friend code. And how is that done? We show it to you now in 3 steps.

First step

Enter the Steam application for PC. Next to the big Store, Library, and Community tabs is another one with your current profile name. Hover your mouse over your name, without clicking, thus displaying a drop-down menu. Then click on Friends, as we show you in the following image.

It will take you to a section where you can see the complete list of friends and manage requests, follow players, groups, etc.

Second step

Within the Friends section, you will find a sidebar on the left with different sections. To continue the process of adding friends, you need to click on Add a friend.

You will be shown a page with three ways to add friends: my friend code, quick invite, or by searching for profiles. For now, we will focus on the first one, that is, the friend code.

Third step

There are two ways to add friends with the code. On the one hand, you can send your own code to your friends so that they can be the ones to add you on Steam. On the other hand, you can ask your friends to send you their codes.

In both cases, the important thing is that the received code must be entered in the slot below it, where it says Enter a friend code. If you type the code correctly, your friend's profile will automatically appear, with a button that says Send Invitation. Click here, and all you have to do is wait for your friend to accept the request!

If it is your friend who sends you the invitation, you can accept the request in different ways. One of them is to return to the Friends section and enter the Pending Requests section.

How to add friends with mobile

The add friends menu on Steam on your phone is quite similar to the app on PC. That means almost any method works similarly on the mobile version. Although in the previous section we have explained how to add friends using the code, we want to take the opportunity to show you another method: the quick invite.

First step

When you open the Steam app on your phone, there is an icon with three lines " ≡ " at the top left. Click here and a side menu will be displayed.

Click on You and your friends; another drop-down menu will open. In it, tap on Friends. This takes you to a page where you can see your full list of friends and manage that list.

Second step

In the top section of Friends, you'll see a green button called Add a Friend or. Click on it, and you'll be presented with a page pretty much the same as the Add a Friend section on the PC app. Therefore, you will see the options for friend code, quick invite, and search.

Beware: from the cell phone, if you have not spent any money in your account, it is possible that you will not be able to see the complete "Add a friend" menu.

Third step

For this last step, we take the opportunity to show you the second method that we recommend using. This is a quick invite. As you can see in the image below, you will find that option just below the friend code section.

How does the quick invite work? Each account has a one-time link that you can copy and send to other friends. It is useful to request friend requests through WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, email, etc.

If someone sends you such a link, what it does is take you to your friend's profile. As long as you are connected to your Steam account, you can send a friend request very easily. Of course, keep in mind that it is for single use and that it expires after 30 days.

In case the link doesn't work, whoever submits the code should press the blue Generate a new link button and try again.

How to Add Friends on Steam for Free

As noted in the note at the beginning of the article, you cannot send friend requests unless you have spent the equivalent of $5 in US dollars. This measure was taken to prevent scams and phishing accounts. In other words, if you don't meet that requirement, your account won't have the necessary privileges to add friends.

The only way to add friends on Steam, without spending money, is to wait for your friends to send you requests. It is worth reaffirming that your friends must meet the requirement if they want to add you as friends.

Our recommendation is to use the friend code method (we explain it more in the first section). Send your friends the code you have, and they can send you a request from their accounts. You will only have to accept and you will already be friends on Steam. Simple and fast!

Other methods of adding friends

In addition to the friend code and quick invite, there are two other ways to add friends on Steam. We will comment on both briefly. The friend code and quick invite methods may not work at some point, so it's a good idea to learn about other ways to add friends.

Through profile search

On the same page where you can see the friend code and quick invite link, at the bottom you will see a slot that says Enter your friend's profile name. It seems simple, right? It is, but it's easy to get into trouble with this method.

To add someone this way, you need to ask your friend what profile name they currently use. Then you have to write it down, hit search and, to be honest, you may or may not find it. Sometimes you will see a very long list of profiles, which is common if your friend uses a very common name. You will have to identify your friend by the image and/or the description.

Another problem with this method is that the Steam database is not updated instantly. If your friend just changed their name or created their account recently, it's more than possible that you won't find them doing a search. Try the other methods instead!

By direct link to the profile

For the latter method, we advise going to store.steampowered.com or steamcommunity.com from a PC and connecting with your account. Next, you must enter your profile. Once inside, look at the page link in the browser itself. It should be in a format similar to https://steamcommunity.com/id/Number unless you have customized the link.

Copy the link and send it to your friends. In this way, they will be able to enter your profile with their own accounts and send you a friend request. It works the same if they are the ones who send you the link to their profiles. But remember: you can only send friend requests if you meet the $5 spend requirement.