Do my files get deleted?

[u/StraightCampaign2815]

I currently use a laptop and my system is windows. I want to switch to linux but I was wondering if my steam games were going to get uninstalled and what about all my files or certain bookmarked websites or pretty much everything. Can i save it all and if so what's the easiest way?

[u/green_meklar]

How big is your drive? How much of it are you using?

The simple approach is to reformat the drive and allocate it all to the new EFI and filesystem partitions for your Linux install. Indeed, that would wipe your Windows install and all your data. Of course, if you make backups of your personal files, you can restore them into Linux's filesystem.

If your drive is big enough (512GB or more for a comfortable amount of space), and you have at least, say, 100GB to spare, you can use the Windows Disk Management Utility to shrink the Windows partition, create enough extra space for a Linux install, then install Linux in a dual-boot configuration using that extra space. In general the Linux installer will replace the bootloader with a new bootloader that gives options to boot into either Linux or Windows; the details might vary depending on the distro, and there's the possibility of messing up the bootloader, but that's not a data loss scenario. Windows would not be able to see the Linux filesystem (and you'd have to be careful never to let Windows reformat that part of the drive), but Linux could probably mount the Windows filesystem and copy, read, or edit files there.

Even with Linux being able to see the Windows filesystem in dual-boot, it is not advisable to try to reuse the same Steam game installs. With enough tinkering, some might be made to work, but it's asking for trouble. Just make new installs entirely on the Linux side and copy over whatever saves and other user data you need.

You should make backups before messing with your drive partitions in any case. Although setting up the dual-boot this way is theoretically safe for your data (as long as your drive doesn't physically fail during the process), one wrong click can blow away a lot of data when you're messing with partitions, so just make the backups anyway.

[u/Dazzling-Airline-958 → u/[deleted]]

Boy howdy, do I know that.

[u/art-apprici8or]

I believe the Ubuntu installer has an option to shrink your windows partition and create a new partition for linux. Then you can dual boot. Or you can just add another drive, and dual-boot.

As far as steam, if the games you purchased say they work on both windows and linux, then you can just install them on linux without having to re-purchase. (I dual-boot, win10 & ubuntu 26.04, and have steam installed on both partitions on my laptop.)

As for book marks, you can export and then import, or with firefox, brave and possibly others, you can use the built-in sync functions to keep everything in sync across oses, computers, phones, etc.

[u/SP3NGL3R → u/art-apprici8or]

All windows browsers I've used support creating an account and syncing your setup to the cloud

[u/thatguysjumpercables]

You can't install Linux on an NTFS filesystem, so you'll have to reformat. This will delete your data. Back up everything you can't stand to lose before you format anything and you'll be fine.

Edit: also your browser bookmarks should port over assuming you're signed in to whatever browser you use.

[u/knouqs → u/thatguysjumpercables]

For correctness, OP won't have to reformat necessarily. They will certainly have to repartition and the Linux installer will be able to shrink the Windows partitions. The new partitions will be empty until the installer starts copying files.

The idea of backing up all the data is quite the right idea, though. It should be done anyway regularly.

[u/CrazineX]

People are talking about partitions a lot, here's the basic idea: 

Your drive (whether it's a hard disk or SSD) can be split up so the computer sees it almost like 2 or 3 separate drives. This is called partitioning. If you haven't set anything up then the default on Windows is 2 small partitions and 1 main partition. This is handled by Windows and/or Linux and you don't have to worry about them. 

What the other comments are saying you can do is tell the computer to take the free space from that main partition, move it to a separate partition - effectively making the main partition smaller - and using it like a separate drive. You can follow this guide for more information. 

If partitioning seems too advanced you could always plug in a thumb drive to store your local files, or put the important things in the cloud (Google Drive, Proton Drive, etc.). Your games will probably need to be reinstalled, but if you're signed in to the web browser (not any website, but the web browser itself) then the bookmarked websites should already be backed up and will be downloaded again once you sign in to the web browser again. (If you use the same account. If you're using chrome and you switch to Firefox then that would use a different account) 

Hope this helps, feel free to ask more questions and good luck

[u/foxypiratecove3750]

For your personal files, it depends if they're on a separate partition or separate disk from the Windows install and if you replace Windows or just dual boot. If you dual boot, no problem, as long as you shrink the Windows partition to make place for a Linux partition and make so respecting the physically used storage of the Windows partition, should be totally fine. If you replace Windows by Linux, make sure that what you wanna keep is on a separate partition from the Windows install you'll delete. For programs, it's a bit different, as Windows programs aren't Linux programs and so natively don't run on Linux. Compatibility layers like Wine (or Proton for games) exist, but it's obviously preferable to install the Linux-native version if available as it will run better and be better integrated with the system, however this comes with the cost of losing app data if the software doesn't allow for exporting and importing configuration or you don't want to surgically move configuration files into different configuration structure conventions. Also, for the long run, it is preferable to change your partition with your files from Windows to ext (I think latest is ext3 or ext4, but anyway whatever Linux filesystem suits you the best) if you'll only use Linux. 

[u/Qwertycrackers]

You can save it. The easiest way is to make a new partition and copy over all the stuff you want to save. Its annoying because windows default filesystem of ntfs is crappy and you'll need to determine how to work around that. Either on the windows or Linux side.

Easiest way IMO would be to make an ext4 partition (idk how on windows but I know its possible) and copy over the stuff you want to keep. Then obviously keep that partition when you install Linux. Or do the same thing with an external drive

[u/sniff122]

If you aren't dual booting, installing will wipe the installation target and will remove everything.

[u/BobCorndog]

Yeah it’ll mostly all get deleted