ABOUT

Linux Idle Master is a simple CLI Script to idle steam games for card drops

Only linux based operating systems are supported

UPDATES

UPDATED v3.0 - BIG UPDATE :: 2025-10-20

VERSION 3.0 UPDATE

• Replaced settings.txt with settings.conf
• Added feature to create settings.conf if file not found
• Removed settings-template.txt from repository
• Lots of bug fixes, error handling improvments
• Reduced API calls for getting app name
• Improved logging with error levels and clean output
• Log file now appends output, not overwritten
• Removed API dependant sorting options (mostvale, leastvalue)
• Removed python-colorama dependency requirement
• Implemented releases for easier version control

Important

Version 3.0 has changed a lot, I recommend a fresh clone of the respository to avoid any issues or confussion.

INSTALLING

OPTION A (requires git package)
From a terminal enter
git clone https://github.com/michael-n0813/linux-idle-master.git

OPTION B
Download a zip file from releases and extract the folder
https://github.com/michael-n0813/linux-idle-master/releases

REQUIREMENTS

The script needs these Python packages to run:

• requests
• beautifulsoup4
• pillow (with jpeg and tk support)

Example for Arch:
pacman -S python-beautifulsoup4 python-requests python-pillow tk

HOW TO RUN

1. Open a terminal and cd to idle master folder
2. Enter python ./start.py

• While idling a game press Ctrl-C to access menu
  • q - Quit
  • r - Resume idling
  • s - Skip game (will skip idling this game)
  • b - Blacklist game (add appID to blacklist.txt)

SETUP

For first time setup, run the script once to generate settings.conf file

1. Log in to https://steamcommunity.com/ on a web browser of your choice
2. Search your cookies for steamcommunity.com (Firefox user can use Shift-F9 to inspect cookie data)
3. Edit settings.conf and copy-paste 'sessionid' content (an alpha-numerical code) from cookie data to the first field
4. Copy-paste 'steamLoginSecure' content (really long alpha-numerical code) from cookie data into the second field

Important

store.steampowered.com and steamcommunity.com use different cookie data, if you get the error Invalid cookie data, cannot log into Steam then make sure you are using the cookie data from steamcommunity.com and NOT store.steampowered.com.

Note

Steam login session will only last ~24hrs or less and will generate a new code when you log back in. Follow the above steps to get a new code.

(optional) STEAMPARENTAL

Note

Unless you need this feature it can ignored and left as default ""

This is only used if using steam parental conrols

1. Log in to https://steamcommunity.com/ on a web browser of your choice
2. Search your cookies for steamcommunity.com (Firefox user can use Shift-F9 to inspect cookie data)
3. Edit the settings.conf file and copy-paste 'steamParental' content from cookie data to the third field

(optional) SORTING

Edit the settings.conf file and in the 'sort' field add the following

• "" (Default, no sorting)
• mostcards (idles game with the most card drops remaining)
• leastcards (idles game with the least card drops remaining)

(optional) HASPLAYTIME

Edit the settings.conf file and in the 'hasPlaytime' field set true or false (default false)

When set to true, only games that have been launched previously will be idled, games that are unplayed and have no playtime will not.

(optional) BLACKLISTING GAMES

1. Create a file called blacklist.txt in the same folder as the script
2. Add game ID, each game ID should be on a seperate line
3. Save blacklist.txt and exit

When blacklisting games from the options menu, a blacklist.txt file will be created automatically if the file does not exist.

AUTHORS

jshackles, Stumpokapow, Michael Noble.

UPDATE HISTORY

UPDATED v1.1 - PYTHON 3 :: 2021-06-25

UPDATED v1.2 - NEW API :: 2022-08-18

UPDATED v1.3 - BUG FIXES, LANG COMPAT :: 2023-08-18

UPDATED v2.0 - BIG UPDATE :: 2023-08-21

VERSION 2.0 UPDATE

• Code Cleaned up and more consistant formatting
• Improved error handling, such as network loss and checking for cookie expiration without endless looping
• Code updated to be more compatable with languages other than english, as long as the languages uses western arabic numerals (0-9)
• Removed old win32 and macOS code
• Added .gitingore and removed config files from git, to make it easier to pull updates
• Added versioning to make it easier to troubleshoot issues
• Idle Sleep time now scales based on card count remaining, in 10 min intervals (5 cards remain = 50 mins sleep, 2 cards remain = 20 mins sleep, etc)

UPDATED v2.1 - USER MENU :: 2023-10-13

VERSION 2.1 UPDATE

• More code cleanup
• Fixed game name function
• Added user menu options for idling games (Press Ctrl-C to access menu while idling games)
  • q - Quit
  • r - Resume idling
  • s - Skip game (will skip idling this game)
  • b - Blacklist game (add appID to blacklist.txt)

UPDATED v2.2 - COOKIES, PATH CHECKING, ERROR :: 2024-05-09

VERSION 2.2 UPDATE

• Added cookie setting to fix idle count for non-English users
• Added Python3 Path checking
• Fixed SyntaxWarning

LICENCE

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of the GNU General Public License can be found at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. For your convenience, a copy of this license is included.