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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Sweet! Now i can get the trading cards from ORION: Dino Horde without actually playing it =3

10 years ago
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You never had to actually play any of the games. All you had to do was start them and leave them be until the cards have dropped.

10 years ago
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Soooooooo...

"Error loading the config file"

What does this mean?

10 years ago
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I have followed the steps given, run as administrator, disables AV... it seems even if i leave all blank it gives the same error, anyone?

PS: I also changed my language to english and created a new cookie/loged out-in agan.

10 years ago
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make sure when copy/paste your info in config you don't accidentally live any symbols out, or (what happened with my kid) any empty spaces added, or hit Enter one too many times when pasting (and ending up with 2 lines instead of 1)

p.s. I'm a total dummy when it gets to comps (electronic in general), but (funniest part) I was the one to figure out what my son (programming major! 2 yrs college studies done!) did wrong.

p.p.s. but if you follow instructions "to the letter" - runs like magic! I used it for a week or so already - got all card drops, no problems. And now my kid use it too. Thanks again, jshackles!

10 years ago
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Finally made it work. I ahve no idea what was the issue, repeated the steps over and over again until it worked.

The only diferent thing i did is copying the content from the settings.txt from the zip directly to the one unzipped and then adding the info instead of replacing the TXT itself.

We´ll see how it works, cheers.

10 years ago
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I got this error, but for me the problem ended up being that I had a space between the stuff I had pasted and the ". Basically, no spaces on the settings.txt at all.

10 years ago
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Work's as intended, no malicious content.
Thank you kindly!

10 years ago
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Thank you very much, been idling non-stop for about 24 hours and have no complaints.

10 years ago
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This seems like a good way to get an account banned.

10 years ago
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This seems like a good comment to back up with any kind of remotely legitimizing information.

10 years ago
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Great app! I can idle the tons of card drops I get now without having to install and constantly check it.

10 years ago
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Finished idling all my cards yesterday, sold them all and traded for Saint's Row 4, Verdun, Insurgency and Tropico 5. Again, you are a genius. Have another thanks!

10 years ago
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Thanks a lot, works perfectly! =D

10 years ago
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Well. I hope Steam doesn't decide to burn me for this.
Thanks. :)

10 years ago
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Nice app. It works perfectly for me. Be carefull though with selling all the cards. Today I hit the '200 listings' mark. You can only create or list 200 items a calender year. Now Steam wants my SSN etc.. I think I'll wait and see until januari next year.. Why all my private details for less thenn € 10... lol.. :/

10 years ago
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Well, they have to - stupid US tax laws... Though you wouldn't have to worry - they don't send this info to IRS unless you sell a LOT of really expensive items and/or get over certain $$ amount of sales.

10 years ago
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My concern is valve storing the data, and validating through a third party. If Sony was dumb enough to have unsecured data in a dmz and no intrusion detection system, I have no faith in any company securely keeping my sensitive info.

10 years ago
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Is this real life? TRADING CARDS, HERE I COME! Really, with my slow internet, I won't even bother to download some games. Now I'll be able to get them with ease!!! :3

10 years ago
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So i wont get banned if i am idling Valve games?

10 years ago
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I'm no prophet - but so far no one complaining... ;)

10 years ago
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this is similar to SAM so fairly sure that you wont

10 years ago
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Thank you so much for making this. Still have a lot of games to idle but it's nice to be able to just leave it for hours. Got me down from 72 games with drops to 57 already.

10 years ago
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May have to try this since I have some card drops left and my laptop cant run anything since my vid card drivers wont install right anymore

10 years ago
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Nice! Just what I wanted...no more SAM :P

Thanks jshackles

10 years ago
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How to make it work with f2p games that drop cards? Just today I start the tool it just worked with no more room in hell, but not other f2p games that drop cards like royal quest or air mech? If it works with other f2p games can someone tell me how to do it

thx :)

10 years ago
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The normal F2P model is that you need to have spent money for the game in question for it to be eligible for card drops. This works retroactively for games paid for before the card system was implemented. TL:DR, pay2drop.

However, Defiance, No More Room in Hell, War of the Roses, and Magicka Wizard Wars will drop cards despite being F2P.

10 years ago
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haha, looks like I hit the "200 items in one calendar year" limit for the community market. Oh well, now I can collect stuff to sell whenever I'll be able to again.

10 years ago
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You can get past that by just filling out a little info form. I don't know how intrusive it is if you're a US citizen (I'm Canadian), but I just had to give Valve info they already had from my credit card info.

10 years ago
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Its nothing noteworthy, that can't be easily had from one of the million other forms an adult fills out in their lives.

10 years ago
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I see, I'll take a look later (I'm German, so the info I have to enter won't be that much either, heh).

10 years ago
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They basically just check to see if you're in the US (for tax purposes). Once they know you're not, you're free again.

10 years ago
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As I posted on the project's GitHub, I'm having a crashing-on-launch issue with the steam-idle executable when attempting to idle for any game with card drops (first in the list was Magicka, blacklisted it just in case it was an issue with that specific game, but Afterfall and AI War emulations crashed as well), so I was wondering if anybody else had the same issue and if is there a way to fix it.

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bits)
Steam version: both (had beta, tried opting out of beta but it still crashed)

10 years ago
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Thank you, have it now for some hours and got already half of my card drops

10 years ago
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so why would i use this if i have sam ?

10 years ago
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read moar
The difference from SAM:

"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."

10 years ago
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its kinda nice but i prefer to use the ol' times sam

10 years ago
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Why do you prefer sam?

10 years ago
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I'm not kinda sure if this is 100% legit and if it's safe for my acc. My internet is crappily slow and this tool would be handy.

10 years ago
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Works fine, thanks!

10 years ago
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Using it for 2 days now and it's great!

10 years ago
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thanks to you I got lots of card and made almost 6 reais ~3 dolars by selling them! thank you, sir! thank you really much!

10 years ago
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I may try this since there's no way I can keep up with getting them the normal way, even though I'm against tools like this :/

10 years ago
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I was against it, but once I had more than 300 cards left to earn, and more as I kept adding games, it eventually reached a point where I was never going to catch up.

Besides, the value of the cards from the non-bundled games was likely to only go down, which means I was losing money by not having those cards to sell early. I've only been using it a couple days, but I've made about $10 so far.

10 years ago
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Started using it a few hours after I wrote it, because I still have 585 cards to earn :P but even with this, this'll take a long time xD

10 years ago
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I have it sorted by high card value, which isn't a perfect science, but at least its kind of correct. The nicest thing about it is that it moves on to the next game when it finishes, so I can just let it run while I do... whatever. If my computer is on, its running in the background.

10 years ago
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