# How to organise your game library after the import **May 16, 2026 ยท Perthro** You connect Steam, then PlayStation Network, then Xbox, and a few seconds later a number appears that you weren't quite ready for. Four hundred games. Six hundred. More than you remembered owning, and plenty you don't remember buying at all. The first feeling is delight. The second, about a minute later, is closer to vertigo. That second feeling is fair. A list of everything you own isn't a record of what you've played. The import gives you the first; turning it into the second takes a bit of work. Here's how to organise a game library after the import in about half an hour, without turning it into a weekend project. ## The import gives you an inventory, not a journal An imported library answers one question: what do you have access to? It can't tell you what you finished, what you loved, what you quietly gave up on, or what you've meant to start since 2021. In [Perthro](https://apps.apple.com/app/perthro/id6764673686), connecting Steam, PlayStation Network or Xbox Live pulls your library across, with achievements and trophies where the platform allows. That part is automatic. The half hour afterwards is what makes it useful, and it's best done while the import is fresh, because that's when you actually remember the games. You don't have to finish it in one sitting, though. ## Step 1: sort by honesty, not guilt The first pass is just status. Every game is one of these: - **Playing:** what you're actually in right now. Be strict. If you haven't touched it in two months, it isn't "playing." - **Played:** anything you've meaningfully experienced, whether you saw the credits or just got what you came for. - **Plan to play:** games you genuinely intend to start. - **Shelved:** games you've put down, with no guilt attached. The honest version is the only one that helps later. It's tempting to mark every ambitious game "plan to play" because it feels better than admitting you'll never reinstall that ninety-hour strategy game. Don't. Shelving isn't admitting failure, and it's reversible. In five years you might be exactly the right person for that game, and it'll be waiting with a clear label instead of buried in a backlog you've stopped trusting. ## Step 2: keep "plan to play" short If one status sabotages people, it's this one. "Plan to play" is where optimism piles up, and left alone it becomes a second inventory as long and flat as the import. Treat it as a short, ordered list instead. Perthro lets you reorder the backlog by hand and shows a Next Up view, which only works if you put four or five games at the top and mean it. Everything else can sit below. It isn't gone, it just isn't next. "Games I might play someday" and "games I've decided to play soon" are different lists, and a backlog is only useful if it knows which one it is. Keep the wishlist and backlog separate in your head too. The wishlist is games you want and don't own. The backlog is games you own and haven't played. Mixing them is how you end up buying something new in a sale while two hundred unplayed games sit there. ## Step 3: make a couple of custom lists Statuses tell you where a game stands. Custom lists tell you something about it, and this is where the cleanup stops feeling like admin. A few ideas: - The games that defined a particular year. - Comfort games you reinstall every winter. - Short games you can finish in a weekend, so the next free weekend doesn't start with forty minutes of scrolling. - Something very specific: roguelikes you actually finished, games you played entirely on a handheld, sequels you liked more than the original. Lists also stop a library being a private spreadsheet. You can share them in Perthro, and "six games to play if you liked that one" from a friend is worth more than any storefront recommendation. ## Step 4: rate the back catalogue, lightly The last pass is ratings, and it's the one to take least seriously. A rating plus one honest sentence is a complete entry: "four stars, the ending stayed with me for a week." That's far better than a blank, and you'll be glad of it later in ways you can't predict now. Game details and cover art come from [IGDB](https://www.igdb.com/), so all you're adding is the part only you know. Start with the games you remember most clearly, and stop when it stops being fun. A partial set of honest ratings beats a complete set of dutiful ones. If you want to go further, our guide on [writing game reviews you'll want to reread](/blog/2026-05-08-writing-game-reviews-that-last) has a few habits that help. ## Why it's worth doing before the next big release season A library you've sorted, even roughly, handles a busy release month well. One you haven't just gets a few hundred more entries dropped on top of a pile you've already learned to ignore. Half an hour of honest triage now means walking into the next Summer Game Fest or Steam sale with a list you trust. The number at the top will still be big. It'll just mean something. If your games are spread across more storefronts than the big three, we wrote about keeping [one library across Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and the rest](/blog/2026-05-10-games-across-five-storefronts).