I created an application that automatically idles your Steam games to extract all of your available Steam Trading Cards. The application automatically finds the games you have drops remaining in, and idles those games one by one until all of your trading cards are in your inventory. This way, you can start up the program and go to sleep / work / away and come back to an inventory full of cards.

Website
Source Code
Official Group

Installation Instructions

Go to the Official Site, download and run the setup.exe file there. The program should launch automatically when the installation is complete. Make sure Steam is open and you're logged in. To start idling, you'll need to click the (Sign In) button and sign in to Steam. Once that's done you should be "in-game" on Steam and the program will indicate as such. Now go watch TV, go to bed, or go on vacation. When you come back to your computer, you should have a pile of Trading Cards in your inventory.

Some FAQ

How does this work?

First of all, the program will determine which of your games still have card drops remaining. It will go through each application and simulate you being “in-game” so that cards will drop. It will check periodically to see if the game you’re idling has card drops remaining. When only one drop remains, it will start checking more frequently. When the game you’re idling has no more cards, it’ll move on to the next game. When no more cards are available, the program will exit.

Do I need to download a game in order for this program to get it's trading cards?

No.

Do I need to be logged in to Steam for Idle Master to work?

Yes, Steam needs to be running and you must be logged in.

Can I play a game while this is running?

It’s possible, but doing so may significantly reduce your card drop rate. For best results, exit this program before playing a game.

How do I close the application?

Simply click the red X on the application.

Is this safe?

Presumably so, yes. The program that simulates you being in-game is no different than other popular methods like using Steam Achievement Manager or "the AppID trick".

Why do I need to sign in to Steam from the application?

When you visit your badges page on Steam, it will show you how many card drops you have remaining in each game. When another user looks at your badges page, they can only see the badges you've completed. By signing in, this allows Idle Master to connect to Steam properly and gives it access to this information that only you can see.

Why should I trust this?

The entire project is open source, which includes the source code for all binaries.

Troubleshooting

Idle Master looks like it's working, but I'm not getting any Steam Trading Cards.

First of all, be patient. Idle Master doesn't make them drop any faster than they normally would if you were playing the game, and each game has a different drop rate. Another thing to check is that your Steam profile correctly shows that you're "In-Game". If Steam doesn't think you're "In-Game", it means something is wrong with your configuration.

10 years ago*

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Love Idle Master! It's even listed as my fav group on my profile page(steam)!

9 years ago
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sometimes my idle stops when my internet connection is unstable
and i have to restart, relog, several times
.

its not your fault, its my problem. :(
hope you can override this~

9 years ago
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I wish we had an easier way to choose which games we want to get our cards from, instead of going through my entire library... Hopefully this gets added in the future

9 years ago
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Steam Achievement Manager will help u

9 years ago
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I'm having issues with Idle Master not actually registering me as "in game" for Steam, my play time doesn't go up, my name in the chat window doesn't go to green from blue, and no cards drop. This has been happening since a few days ago and persisted after I reinstalled, logged back in, tried travel edition and admin mode. Is this happening to everyone else too, or is there a fix, or what's going on?

9 years ago
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I left it up all night and can't say I have seen that problem.

9 years ago
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Glad idle master isn't just broken, but what else can I try?

9 years ago
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it visual bug. i left it up all night too, and while status "in game" dissapear after aprox 30 min pc inactivity, cards drop without problems.

9 years ago
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So you didn't show as in game on your profile but got drops? When I first noticed it was because I had left Bunker open all day and still has wit card drops remaining and the same sort play time

9 years ago
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I show as in game and my playtime goes up. I'm going to guess there's something happening where it's not really communicating with your steam client for some reason. Try uninstalling and reinstalling idlemaster? Also, make sure it's not being blocked by your firewall. It connects to steamcommunity.com (I just brought it up again as I'm about to go to bed, and I was watching my network traffic).

9 years ago
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I did install the mobile version to run a fresh instance and it was the exact same but I don't remember if I reinstalled it. Nothing has changed with my firewall but in in mobile right now so it's hard to troubleshoot properly. Thanks for the suggestions and feedback

9 years ago
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Had the same Problem. I had to disable all compatibility settings on the steam.exe. I ticked "always run as administrator", which already caused the issue. Could that be your Problem, too?

9 years ago
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I didn't have any compatibility anything set, but turning on " always run as admin" and running the compatibility auto-check fixed my issue. Thanks!

9 years ago
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glad I could help:)

9 years ago
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How is this not advertising?

9 years ago
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This application is awesome. Have not purchased a game on Steam since September with real world money

Games bought using Steam Trading Cards sales

  • Just Cause 3
  • Kyn
  • Missing an Interactive Thriller Episode 1
  • Troubles Land
  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • Anomoly 2
  • Vampires: Guide them to saftey
  • Alone in the Dark: Illumination
  • Colour Guardians
  • Guardians of Victoria
  • Dead Realm
  • Dracula's Legacy
  • JRPG Bundle
  • Little Big Adventure Bundle
  • The Park
9 years ago
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Can i idle few games, by starting idle master few times at same moment ?

8 years ago
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If it made sense, it would be implemented. IM can idle multiple games up to the 2 hours threshold, then it should always be one at a time.

8 years ago
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I'm having an issue when I start Idlemaster. It grays out the "Games" pull-down menu making impossible to pause idling.

I noticed this about a week ago when my system was using Win 7 Pro. I've since upgraded to Win 10 Pro and it's still happening.

8 years ago
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is it just me or did they really slow down the drop rate on most games even after the min two hours to get the games ready to start dropping cards it takes several hours to get all the cards from a game ive had to idle some games for up to 8 hours total to get its cards is that normal or am i just remembering it being a lot faster because im loosing my marbles?

i used to get about 30 or more cards to drop a day lately ive been getting about 10-12 a day anyone else notice this or is it just me?

8 years ago
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Yeah, same.

8 years ago
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same, drop rate is getting sad.

8 years ago
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maybe steam feels they will drive up the price of cards because of the increased farming time and make more money off of them from there cut when they are sold?

8 years ago
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doesnt seem likely to me. Their share (which they split with the game's developers) for market sales is a fix 2 cents untill the price exceeds 21 cents. Regular cards will never rise that high just because of extended idle times

8 years ago
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i wounder why they would slow the drop rate then other then maybe server overhead but i couldn't imagine card drops would be using all that much processing time and bandwidth.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Bumping this to whinge, not about IM but about the card drop rate. Looks to be about 45 minutes per card right now, so slow. Still got about 790 games to idle :( Made some inroads though as I was up at over 1000 5-6 weeks ago but I've barely played much durinng that time and was idling a lot.

8 years ago
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Steam Idle Master is having super Traffic with everyone logging it to farm all their cards before the Winter Sale.

8 years ago
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Does it work on linux? If not, are there plans to make a linux port?

8 years ago
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There is a Linux version which is not maintained anymore. It lacks certain features but it still works.

I love jshackles's work, but he went from multiplatform to Windows only with idlemaster and from cross-browser to Chrome-only with Enhanced Steam... that, I don't like.

8 years ago
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That probably won't answer your question but if you're looking for cards farmer app that works on linux - ASF does.

8 years ago
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Thanks, although I got Idle Master working, I might take a look at ASF.

8 years ago
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There's 1 game that you can finish within 5min give or take (The Deer)... Steam Cards are in the game, but why on earth would I play it when there's nothing else to do in the game? So the Idol Master would be the answer. Why waste my time, when a program can :)

So thank you.

8 years ago
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This program changed my life.....thanks to it, i have already 900+ games on my library......really thanks developer(s) for making it possible and good luck in the future

8 years ago
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Started farming 570 cards on the 26 Dec. Only got 12 more cards to go as of today!
Thanks to Idle Master I can now get Rise of the Tomb Raider for free :D.

8 years ago
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Seems like IdleMaster is broken for me :(
It says that Steam isn't running (even when it's opened), can't sign in, can't open the settings...
But looks like I'm currently In-Game and that there are 3 Card drops remaining, even though it doesn't show any game :(

Hope somebody can help me with this issue

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Totally forgot my post here...
Thanks for the Suggestion, But the problem got solved more or less by itself when I upgraded my PC and made a clean installation of everything :-)

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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this is my fav thing ever, bless.

8 years ago
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Been having a bit of a problem with idle master for a while now. When it tries to idle the games for 2 hours it doesn't actually stop. So if I leave my computer on i've often found myself with 6+ hours in multiple games with no card drops because they were all idle at the same time. Any idea of what's causing this?

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Just did this. Will see if this works and if not will try the persons belows method.

8 years ago
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I'm having the same issue and I'm using the portable version aswell, sounds like what ShizuneHakamichi wrote could help

8 years ago
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Just set it to idle one by one (there's a setting for it), the 2 hours rule does no longer apply for every game and especially not for everyone.
It may or may not take longer; of course it won't if your client keeps glitching out like that.

Or if it keeps happening, you may want to check out Archi Steam Farm, less user friendly, but more efficient.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Yeah, but it came up that if you didn't ask for a refund ever in the past you can receive cards before the 2h mark.
You might be losing a pair of hours if you use that setting!

8 years ago
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Been using this for weeks, it's so helpful. Love it to death; thank you for this.

8 years ago
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I'll throw in my vote for Idle Master. I just have the occasional hiccup where it will log me out once every few days, but other than that it works perfectly for me.

8 years ago
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keeping 1 by 1 yes is slow but better to download all game so its ok :D

8 years ago
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Quick question for anyone that uses this:

I'm logged in to Steam and it's working fine. Do I need to keep my status active so it shows I'm "playing" a game? Or can I change my status to "offline" so it doesn't show me playing many random games?

8 years ago
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You can set your community status to offline.

8 years ago
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By community status, do you mean the friend window status? Where you can set Away, Busy, Looking to Trader, Offline etc..

8 years ago
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Yes, you can be offline in friends.

8 years ago
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Cheers :-)

8 years ago
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Yep. IdleMaster only needs your Steam client itself to be online (not started in offline mode). What you report to your friend list is irrelevant, just like in normal card drops when playing a game.

8 years ago
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Thank you :-)

8 years ago
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yes that one :)

8 years ago
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Cheers!

8 years ago
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Oh god, thank you so much for this! I have multiple games that I've beaten/have become uninterested in that still have card drops, so this is saving me so much time~

8 years ago
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Welp, tried to use Idle Master; worked well for a couple of hours but when the Next Check-timer was at 5:01 it became unresponsive, and wanted to close down. Then I got a Blue Screen called CRITICAL_PROCESS_FAILED, and when the computer booted up back again it couldn't find my SSD. After 10 minutes I booted it back up and it was back up, and surprisingly enough a Windows Update started. Is this the Windows Update's fault or Idle Masters? I'm grateful for any response.

8 years ago
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The update. MicroSoft pushed some gigantic update yesterday and it messed up a few PCs (including our entire office network). You most likely had a .NET error as it was one of the things that were being updated.

8 years ago
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Thanks for answering!

8 years ago
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