How to Sync Steam Playtime Automatically (and Auto-Add New Games)
A tracker that only knows what you typed into it goes stale within a week. If you play on Steam, the hours are already recorded there, so there is no reason to maintain them by hand. NXTO syncs them for you.
What gets synced
Hours played (always on, once Steam is connected)
Once a day NXTO reads your Steam library and updates the hours on every game you already track. That's all it does to existing games. Status, rating, priority and notes are never changed — if you marked a game Dropped, it stays Dropped, even if Steam shows you launched it yesterday.
New games (optional, off by default)
If you switch on Automatically add new games from my Steam library, every game that newly appears in your library is added to your backlog. It is off by default because not everyone wants every free giveaway in their list.
How to turn it on
- Connect Steam: Account → Connect Steam (or sign in with Steam).
- In the Steam section of your account, tick the auto-add box if you want new purchases added automatically.
- Press Sync now if you don't want to wait for the daily run.
The details that matter
- New means new. Auto-add only considers games that appeared after the last sync. The first sync just records what you already own, so your whole library doesn't land in the backlog at once (that's what the import is for).
- Deleting sticks. If you remove a game from your backlog, it won't be added back on the next sync.
- Junk is skipped. Betas, playtests, test servers, demos, soundtracks and SDKs are filtered out by name.
- Nothing is deleted. If a game leaves your Steam library, it stays in your list.
- Private profile? If Game details goes back to private, the sync can't read your list and simply waits.
Why it matters
Up-to-date hours make everything else more honest: your activity heatmap fills in, your “to finish” list reflects what you really played, and the games you started but dropped become visible. That's the raw material for prioritising, which we cover in how to prioritise a backlog.
Let Steam do the bookkeeping
Connect your account once and your hours stay current.
Get started for free →