Is there anyway to stop a download on Steam?

Question

Steam recently started downloading an update for Super Monday Night Combat. Remembering the fact that the game never ran properly for me, and that I was unable to ever find any fix, I impatiently paused the download and deleted all local files from my computer.

The problem is, Steam is still trying to download the update. I've already restarted Steam. Even tried to uninstall the game completely, but it's still trying to download this update! I'd rather avoid having to hunt down the specific files and remove them manually.

Is there any way I can force this download to stop?

Answer 1

In your library list, right click on the game you wish to cancel the download for and click 'Uninstall' from the 'Manage' menu.

After a confirmation prompt, this will remove the data that has already been downloaded and remove the game from the download list.

Answer 2

This solution works for every game on Steam:

Go to your library, right click on the game you're downloading and want to remove and select "Delete local content". That's all. You don't need to stop or restart Steam this way.

Answer 3

1. Close Steam
2. Locate your C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\downloading folder
3. Delete everything under Downloading (not a specific folder just everything)
4. Start steam - product should download anew.

Answer 4

1. Close Steam
2. Locate you <Steam>/steamapps/downloading subfolder
3. Try to look if it does exist a subfolder called /440/ (TF2 app id) and delete it
4. Relaunch Steam

Answer 5

Okay, here is an answer for a new decade. The other answers here don't quite work any more (Even the accepted one, downvoted it sadly to make it less prominant).

This problem has been driving me nuts. I finally figured it out.

delete the files in steamapps/downloading (I just deleted everything in the directory)

Delete the directory named after the game in steamapps/common

Then the real trick: In steamapps there should be an appmanifest for each game. Go through them and look for one that contains the name of the app you are after and delete it.

If it's difficult to find the right appmanifest to delete, you can use "open with" and select notepad, and select "always use this app to open this type of file" checkbox. After opening one this way you can select all the the rest of the files at the same time and right-click/open to open them all at once, then just close the notepads until you find the one you are after, the filename you want to delete will be in the title bar.