Transferring Steam Games over to New Computer-How do I do This?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

I'm flying back to Phoenix on Monday for the start of the new college semester, and we've recently purchased a new desktop computer for me that'll ship down there to the dorms so it'll be there when I arrive. This means my mom is going to keep the laptop I've been using for the past year or so, which seeing as it was hers to begin with, is fair.

However, I need some help transferring my Steam files over, both the game and the client. I have a portable hard drive I've been backing up my documents on. Can I transfer files over to it and onto the new computer easily? Size isn't an issue, it has like 300 GB of storage. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[Torque]

apparently this:
Go into Steam -> File -> Backup Games -> Select the games you want to backup and the location (External HDD)

[Shin Amakiir]

Torque's plan (actually, it's right-click on the file in Steam's library) works for the game itself, but I think you have to back up your save files yourself. To do that, you have to find the individual game's save folder. For example, Borderlands' is in My Documents -> My Games.

[PyrosNine]

Yeah, if saves are placed differently you'll have to both back up your steamapps and your saves just to be safe.

But, one neat thing is that if you delete everything except where your games/saves are stored and Steam.exe, move them to another computer/drive, and run Steam.exe, steam will rebuild itself with it's new location in mind, same content. That's how I moved them all to my new, nifty external drive.

For more details it's best to go to the Steam help section though, I suggest.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Alright, I poked around the Steam forums and found a thread that had some good advice.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1137460.html
Looks like all I need to do is make sure my old SteamApps folder and MyDocuments are backed up so that when I download the Steam client on the new computer I can just paste those in rather than redownloading everything.

Thanks to everyone for the advice. My primitive reptile brain tends to shut down in the face of higher technology so I appreciate the help.