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Download a soundtrack without the game

You own a game's OST and want the actual music files — but Steam insists on parking them inside (or alongside) the whole game, and won't just hand you a folder of tracks. The audio is sitting in its own depot the entire time. Point DepotDownloader at that depot and you get the soundtrack on its own — and, with a small trick, the lossless FLAC version instead of the MP3 one. Most of the OST rips I keep on my own phone came out of this exact workflow, so I can vouch it does what it says.

~6 min read| updated june 2026| use case

01Why this is annoying by default

Steam handles soundtracks one of two ways: older ones are a DLC depot under the game (so "installing the OST" really means installing the game and finding the audio buried in its folders), and newer ones are a standalone soundtrack app that the client wants to drop into a music folder tied to the game. Either way, the thing you want — a clean folder of audio files you can put on your phone or in your music library — isn't what the client readily gives you. But underneath, the soundtrack is just a depot of audio files, and a depot is exactly what DepotDownloader pulls. You own the OST; this is simply taking delivery of the files you bought, by themselves.

02Find the soundtrack depot

Look the soundtrack up on SteamDB — search the game's name plus "soundtrack", or open the game's page and check its Depots tab. You're looking for a depot whose name says soundtrack/OST/music. Two shapes you'll meet:

  • A soundtrack depot under the game's App ID — e.g. Steam's own examples, the Half-Life and Portal soundtrack depots, live under their games.
  • A standalone soundtrack App ID — the modern system gives the OST its own app; that app has its own depot(s).

Note the App ID and the soundtrack Depot ID — that's all you need. The find-your-IDs guide covers the SteamDB navigation if any of this is unfamiliar.

03FLAC vs MP3 — pick the depot

Here's the part worth knowing: many Steam soundtracks ship the lossless FLAC version and the smaller MP3 version as two separate depots. In the client you'd toggle a "download FLAC" option; with DepotDownloader you simply pick the depot. On SteamDB the FLAC depot is usually labelled as such — "…Soundtrack FLAC" — sitting next to a standard-quality one. If audio quality is why you bought the OST, grab the FLAC depot; if you want small files for a phone, the MP3 depot. You can pull both into separate folders and keep whichever you prefer. When I rip an OST I keep, it's always the FLAC depot — disk is cheap and I'd rather not re-pull later.

04Download just the music

Run DepotDownloader with the soundtrack's app and the depot you chose, logged in with the account that owns the OST:

> .\DepotDownloader.exe -app <appid> -depot <soundtrack-depot-id> \ -username you -remember-password -dir .\ost

No -manifest needed — soundtracks don't really have versions you'd roll back to, so the latest is fine. The -dir folder fills with the audio files (and often cover art and a booklet PDF if the publisher included them). That's it — a self-contained folder of the music, ready to copy anywhere. The same approach grabs any single piece of bonus content sold as its own depot — artbooks, wallpapers, bonus packs — since each is just a depot under the game; the soundtrack is only the most-requested example.

05What you get, and the fine print

  • You must own the soundtrack. Steam license-checks the OST depot like any other content — if you didn't buy the soundtrack DLC, the depot key won't come (the ownership wall). This downloads music you purchased, by itself; it isn't a way to get a soundtrack you don't own.
  • Format is the publisher's choice. Not every OST offers FLAC — some are MP3 only. SteamDB shows which depots exist; if there's no FLAC depot, the publisher didn't ship one.
  • It's your music, for you. A purchased soundtrack you've pulled to your own drive is yours to listen to on your devices — the obvious, intended personal use. Re-uploading or redistributing someone's composition is a different thing entirely, and not what this is for.

So the soundtrack you bought doesn't have to live trapped inside an 80 GB game install. It's a depot of audio files; take delivery of it directly, in the format you want, and put it wherever your music lives. That's where every soundtrack I've pulled this way ended up — in my own library, alongside everything else.

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