17 hidden Steam features only power users know about

If you decide to stream to a larger computer or even hook up to a TV, you'll probably struggle with the small text on Steam. So when using Steam on a large screen, just click "Big Picture Mode" for a much more TV-friendly experience.

One of the simplest things you can do to resolve issues with a game's performance is to update your video drivers, but hunting down updates on a company's website is annoying. Luckily, Steam has a simple solution built right in.

Click "Steam" in the upper left hand corner of the application and then "Check for Video Driver Updates." BOOM.

Most people's Steam libraries are packed with games that they bought on a whim or will never get around to playing. And that means the library can get messy pretty quickly. Steam has a tool built-in to clean up that list so you can hide your shameful purchases.

Right click any game in your library, click "Set Categories," and check "Hide this game in my library."

If you ever want to find your hidden games again, just search for it under the "Hidden" filter, right click the game, click "Set Categories" and uncheck the box labeled "Hide this game from my Steam library."

Let's face it: Steam is ugly.

To change its design, download any Steam skin — there are number of sites where they are available, but PC Gamer has a great list of some particularly nice-looking ones.

You can also make your very own custom skin.

Once you've found a skin you like, open the "Steam" folder (on PC, this folder is usually in "Program Files"), then open the "Skins" folder. Move the file for the skin you downloaded into this folder.

Now, when you restart your Steam client, go to "Settings," then "Interface," and then select the skin you downloaded from the drop-down menu.

To find the "Skins" folder on a Mac, open your "Applications" folder, right-click the Steam icon, and click "Show package contents." Click "Contents," then "MacOS," then "Skins." Drop the downloaded file into this folder.

Enhanced Steam is a great browser extension that tells you the pricing history on any game so you can see if now is a good time to buy. It also tells you how much money you're actually saving when you buy bundles based on which games in the bundle you already own.

Download Enhanced Steam here.

Hitting Shift+Tab during any game will bring up Steam's Overlay, which lets you chat with your friends or even pull up an internet browser to look up a walkthrough if you're stuck — all without leaving the game.

One of the main advantages to playing a game on a PC is the wide variety of user-created mods that are available to download (like this awesome one that makes "Star Wars: Battlefront" look like the original "Star Wars" films). But for a newcomer, figuring out how to use them can be intimidating.

On the main page of many games, there is a tab called "Workshop," which collates all the mods available for a given title. You can sort them by "Most popular" so you're only looking through the best of what the community has to offer. They're a snap to install and run!

To start downloading a game, all you have to do is log into Steam by using the Steam app, visit your games list and tap "install" next to the title you want to start downloading.

Keep in mind, this feature only works if your home computer is currently awake and running the Steam application.

If you don't want to leave your computer running all day but you know that you'll want to start downloading a certain game as soon as it's available, you can automatically set your computer to wake up at a certain time.

Download the Steam app on iOS right here, and Google Play right here.

Though Steam offers a ton of PC games, it doesn't have everything. This can get annoying if you rely on Steam's social features and like to keep track of all your games on one platform.

Here's how you can add non-Steam games to your Steam library:

Click "Add a game" in the lower left corner of the window, then "Add a non-Steam Game."

Now, all of your Steam friends will see when you're playing that particular game and you can use Steam's handy Overlay feature, even if the game is usually hosted by EA's Origin service or something else.

Steam remembers which games you own, so even if your computer crashes, you can re-download them on a new machine. But if you have a large collection, that's going to take a huge amount of time and it will eat up your data if you don't have an unlimited plan.

Instead, right-click on any game, click "Properties," and then go over to the "Local Files" tab.

Click "Backup game files" and then select the games you want to backup.

This can be a complicated process, especially if you're trying to backup non-Steam games or if you also want to backup all your save data, so visit Steam's official help page on the subject if you're looking to learn more.

By going to your Steam preferences and clicking "Downloads," you'll unleash a world of hidden treasures that lets you micromanage every single aspect of how Steam downloads games.

You can schedule your computer to only download updates during certain hours of the day so that your usual internet browsing doesn't get bogged down. Or, you can just maximize the speed at which games download for the same effect.

Take a look!

Sometimes, people get a little too liberal with how much they change their screennames, which makes it hard to keep up with who's who.

When you go to a friend's profile, just click the white arrow next to their name and you can see all of their past aliases.

You can also simply rename your friends "John" or "Martha" or whatever, so you don't have to deal with tracking down their various aliases.

To do this, visit a friend's profile, click "More," and then click "Add nickname."

Now they'll just stay "John," gosh darn it.

Did you know you can swap gifts and in-game items with your friends?

To do so, visit a friend's profile, click "More" and then click "Offer a trade."

You can trade games that have been purchased as a gift or other various in-game items.

Check out this helpful guide on Steam's site to learn more.

If you'd rather just sell your items online than trade with friends, you can do that too!

Under the "Community" headline on the main Steam page, click "Market" to buy and sell a variety of in-game items. By far, the game with the most vibrant market seems to be "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," but there are a number of other games with eligible items.

Understandably, there are a litany of restrictions on this Marketplace, so visit this helpful FAQ to learn more.

Did we leave out your favorite hidden Steam feature? Let us know and we might add it to this page!