Browse, preview and install custom startup videos for Steam Big Picture and the Steam Deck — in one click.
Download · Features · How it works · Troubleshooting · Building from source
Boot Video Manager is a desktop "mod launcher" for Steam startup movies. It gives you the whole steamdeckrepo.com catalog (about 8,400 videos) with search, filters and a live preview, installs a video into Steam in one click, and removes it cleanly when you are done — without ever touching files you did not ask it to.
The interface is available in English and French.
Unofficial project, not affiliated with Valve or steamdeckrepo.com. Every video belongs to its author, who is credited on its page.
- Download
BootVideoManager-<version>-win-x64-setup.exefrom the latest release (win-arm64for ARM PCs such as Snapdragon laptops) and run it. The installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn about it: click More info, then Run anyway. - Open Boot Video Manager, pick a video in the Catalog and click Install.
- If Steam still plays its own video, the app offers to turn on Steam's Random startup movie option for you (Steam restarts if it is open): Steam then picks one of your enabled videos at each start.
- Launch Big Picture mode and enjoy.
No administrator rights and no .NET runtime are needed: the installer ships every component and installs for the current user by default.
- The full steamdeckrepo.com catalog with thumbnail, author, duration, likes, downloads, type and target devices.
- Instant search by title or author (accent-insensitive), sorting (trending, most downloaded, most liked, newest, oldest) and filters (startup or suspend video, Steam Deck or Steam Machine, duration).
- A looping preview inside the app, with pause, mute and volume.
- Your sort, filters and preview volume are remembered between sessions.
- Works offline with the last known catalog.
- Sign in with Steam (on Steam's own page, the app never sees your password) to like videos and show only your likes; the account appears at the top of the window.
- Downloads are verified (WebM signature, size, SHA-256) before being placed in Steam's
config/uioverrides/movies/folder under a clean, unique name. - Interrupted downloads resume where they stopped; two run at a time and the others wait their turn.
- Every install is tracked: the app never deletes a file it did not install (or that was modified since) without asking first.
- Import your own
.webmfiles.
- One list for everything Steam can play: your videos, Steam's stock intros (Steam Deck, Steam Deck OLED, Big Picture, SteamOS…) and the videos in Steam's startup movie cache.
- Enable or disable any video with a switch, without deleting or re-downloading it — disabled videos are simply moved to a folder Steam ignores, so they also leave the shuffle.
- Steam's original files and Points Shop items are never modified.
- Makes Steam actually play them: a fresh Steam keeps playing its own video until Random startup movie is turned
on. The app detects it, offers to turn it on (closing and restarting Steam if needed) and keeps a copy of Steam's
config.vdfasconfig.vdf.bvm-backup. Only that one setting is changed.
- Share › Export my videos saves your catalog videos (and the Steam stock intros you enabled) in a small
.bvmpackfile, with each video's enabled or disabled state. - Your friends use Share › Import a pack: the app shows what will happen, downloads the missing videos from steamdeckrepo.com and applies the same states. It can also disable their other videos so Steam only plays the pack's — nothing is ever deleted.
- A pack only holds references, never video files: videos you imported from your own
.webmfiles are not included.
- Automatic updates: the app checks GitHub at startup and installs a new version in one click. The installer is verified against the size and SHA-256 published with the release before it runs; the app then restarts, up to date. You can skip a version or turn the check off.
- Automatic Steam detection (Windows registry,
~/.steam,~/.local/share/Steam, Flatpak, Snap), or pick the folder yourself. - Single instance: launching the app again brings the open window to the front.
- Diagnostic log, one click away in Settings › About, to attach to bug reports.
Steam plays any .webm placed in <Steam>/config/uioverrides/movies/ and lists it under
Settings › Customization. Boot Video Manager manages that folder for you:
| Location | Used for |
|---|---|
config/uioverrides/movies/ |
Videos Steam can play (installed by the app, imported, or added by hand) |
config/uioverrides/movies_disabled/ |
Videos you disabled — kept, but invisible to Steam |
steamui/movies/ |
Steam's stock animations — read only; enabling one copies it to movies/ as steam_default_*.webm |
config/communityitemscache/startupmovies/ |
Steam's own startup movie cache, also used by the shuffle |
The app's own data never goes inside the Steam folder:
| Windows | Linux | |
|---|---|---|
| Settings and install manifest | %APPDATA%\BootVideoManager\ |
~/.config/BootVideoManager/ |
| Cache (catalog, thumbnails, updates) | %LOCALAPPDATA%\BootVideoManager\cache\ |
~/.cache/BootVideoManager/ |
| Logs (kept 14 days) | %LOCALAPPDATA%\BootVideoManager\logs\ |
~/.local/state/BootVideoManager/logs/ |
The cache can be deleted at any time. If the manifest is deleted, installed videos stay in place and simply ask for confirmation before deletion.
steamdeckrepo.com is a community site, so the app keeps its footprint small: the full catalog is fetched once and
cached for an hour, then refreshed with conditional requests (If-Modified-Since → empty 304); search, sorting and
filtering happen locally; thumbnails are cached on disk with at most four parallel downloads; requests carry an
identifiable User-Agent, honour Retry-After and are retried at most three times; videos are downloaded through the
site's official /post/download/{id} link.
| File | For |
|---|---|
BootVideoManager-<version>-win-x64-setup.exe |
Windows 10/11 — recommended |
BootVideoManager-<version>-win-arm64-setup.exe |
Windows on ARM |
BootVideoManager-<version>-win-x64-portable.exe |
Windows, no installation (single file) |
BootVideoManager-<version>-win-arm64-portable.exe |
Windows on ARM, no installation |
BootVideoManager-<version>-x86_64.flatpak |
Linux / Steam Deck — recommended (updates itself afterwards) |
BootVideoManager.flatpakref |
Linux: same app, installed straight from the update repository |
BootVideoManager-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz |
Linux x64, no installation (advanced) |
SHA256SUMS.txt |
Checksums of every file |
- The installer adds Start menu (and optional desktop) shortcuts and an entry in Settings › Apps. It can install for the current user (default, no admin prompt) or for all users. Updates install over the existing copy; uninstalling offers to remove settings and cache and never touches the videos placed in Steam.
- The portable executable contains everything; its native libraries are extracted to
%TEMP%\.neton first launch. It tells you when a new version is out but cannot replace itself: the button opens the download page. - Linux / Steam Deck (desktop mode): open robocnop.github.io/BootVideoManager
and click Install, or download the
.flatpakfile from a release and open it. Your software center (Linux Mint's Software Manager, Discover, GNOME Software…) installs it with everything included (video previews, Steam sign-in), then updates it with every release, like any other app. From a terminal:flatpak install --user https://robocnop.github.io/BootVideoManager/io.github.Robocnop.BootVideoManager.flatpakref. If Steam itself is the Flatpak version, pick its folder (~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam) with Settings › Choose a folder…. - The Linux archive needs VLC from your package manager for previews: extract it, then
chmod +x BootVideoManager && ./BootVideoManager.
Windows SmartScreen warns about the installer. The executable is not code-signed yet. Click More info, then Run anyway.
The video does not play when Steam starts. On Windows, Steam only plays the startup movie when Big Picture mode starts. Also check that the video is enabled in the app's Installed tab and that Random startup movie is on in Steam › Settings › Customization (the Installed tab shows a banner with a Turn on button when it is off).
Steam is stuck on a black screen. Disable or delete the video from the Installed tab, then restart Steam.
Steam was not found.
Open Settings in the app and choose your Steam folder (the one that contains config and steamapps).
Something else went wrong. Open Settings › About › Open the logs folder and attach today's log to a new issue.
Requirements: the .NET 10 SDK (pinned by global.json), and
Inno Setup 6 for the Windows installer (winget install JRSoftware.InnoSetup).
dotnet build BootVideoManager.slnx
dotnet run --project src/BootVideoManager.App
dotnet test --solution BootVideoManager.slnxTo try the app without touching your real Steam install, create a folder containing a config sub-folder and run:
dotnet run --project src/BootVideoManager.App -- --steam-root /path/to/FakeSteamSelf-contained builds (tests first, then publish to artifacts/publish/):
./build/publish.ps1 # win-x64 (installer + portable) and linux-x64
./build/publish.ps1 -Runtime win-x64,win-arm64
./build/publish.ps1 -SkipInstaller # without Inno Setup./build/publish.sh linux-x64 # on Linux (keeps the executable bit)
./packaging/linux/build-appimage.sh # AppImage, requires appimagetool- Bump
<Version>inDirectory.Build.props. - Optionally write the release notes in
docs/release-notes/v<version>.md. - Push a matching tag:
git tag v1.2.0 && git push origin v1.2.0.
release.yml then runs the tests, builds the x64 and ARM64 installers and portable
executables plus the Linux archive, and publishes them with SHA256SUMS.txt — which the in-app updater requires.
Tags with a suffix (v1.2.0-beta) become pre-releases, which the app never offers.
src/BootVideoManager.Core UI-independent services, fully unit tested
Api/ steamdeckrepo.com client, tolerant parser, polite retries
Catalog/ disk cache, conditional refresh, search / filters / sorting
Install/ verified and resumable downloads, manifest, safe removal
Updates/ GitHub release check, verified installer download
Steam/ Steam installation detection
Caching/ thumbnail cache
Localization/ French / English
Platform/ app folders, settings, log
src/BootVideoManager.App Avalonia 12 + CommunityToolkit.Mvvm (Views, ViewModels, Services, Controls)
tests/BootVideoManager.Core.Tests xUnit v3
tests/BootVideoManager.App.Tests headless Avalonia UI tests
packaging/windows Inno Setup script (silent update mode: /UPDATE=1)
packaging/linux AppImage script and desktop entry
packaging/flatpak Flatpak / Flathub manifest (see its README)
Design notes: docs/architecture.md · API and Steam paths research: docs/research.md.
- Tested mostly on Windows 11. The Linux build runs on Linux Mint; it has not been tried on a real Steam Deck yet.
- No OLED / LCD filter: steamdeckrepo.com does not provide that information.
- Linux archive previews depend on the system libvlc (the Flatpak bundles its own).
- Controller use: keyboard navigation, visible focus and infinite scrolling work, but there is no dedicated Game Mode interface yet.
- Suspend animations install like startup videos; selecting them as the resume animation has not been verified on a Deck.
Bug reports, ideas, translations and pull requests are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the setup, the project rules and how to report a bug with the app's log.
MIT. Videos from the catalog remain the property of their authors.
- Catalog, thumbnails and videos: steamdeckrepo.com and its creators.
- Inspiration: steam-deck-repo-manager and CapitaineJSparrow's original Steam Repo Manager.
- Built with Avalonia, CommunityToolkit.Mvvm, LibVLCSharp and System.IO.Abstractions.