Login to Steam on an account that legitimately owns the game you want to directly download workshop items for.

Press Winkey+R and enter this command. Alternatively you can paste this URL command into a web browser and then click the "Open Steam Client Bootstraper" when prompted.



Now when you open the Steam Client in Large Mode you'll have a "Console" tab in the navigation menu at the very top. Click on "Console".


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First we need to get the app_ID then type 'download_item' <space> and paste the copied app_ID into the console, then a blank space, then copy/paste the workshop_ID and press enter to start the download.

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The App_ID is located in the product title's store page on steam. Open a web browser and search for the game you want to download a workshop item for and go to that product's store page.


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Type download_item into the text field at the bottom of the Console, then a space, then the app_id. Then get the workshop_ID:

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Click on the "Community Hub" button on the Store page you're on then "Workshop" at the top of the page, search for and find the item you want and go to it's workshop page. The workshop_ID is the series of numbers in the web address. It's usually at the end of the web address but it can be before the end, you need the numbers and the numbers only.


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Type a space then add the workshop_ID and press Enter. The command should look like this:
NOTE: There must be one space between
download_item<here>app_ID<and here>workshop_ID

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In this example to download the Micro Programmable Block mod for Space Engineers workshop I typed:

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It only tells you if the file starts downloading or fails. Then it will tell you where the file was downloaded to when the download completes.


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If you've been doing as you're reading you've seen that the console tells us where the file has been downloaded to after the download completes. This location is different for every game, they get downloaded to a folder named as the app_ID of the product the workshop item is for.

NOT WHERE YOUR GAME FILES ARE where Steam it self is installed to. The default directory for these files is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\<app_id>\<workshop_ID>

In this example the file I downloaded went into:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_244850\item_401530181

Be sure to copy the entire "item_#######" Folder. Not the contents inside of it.
Paste the entire item folder where these files go for the game it is for.

You can rename the folder you downloaded to whatever you want so you know what it is when looking at it in the game instead of trying to memorize the workshop ID for all the mods you have.

Where these files have to be copied to depends on the game they are for. You can of course do as this guide shares for any game that has a workshop on Steam however I do not know the file structure of every game that's available on Steam. If you don't already know that information Google it or ask on the forums of that game's community hub.

If you cannot find that info post in the comments or in the discussions for this guide.
I will try to help if I can.

Q: Is this pirating?
A: No. It's using Steam's own software. Valve created the Console feature and its commands.

Q: Why doesn't the Console load by default when we launch Steam?
A: I have no idea. You can append a -console switch to your Steam shortcut or the Run command in the registry editor so it does. I've written another guide on the forums on how to do those things here. Use -console instead of or in addition to the commands in that guide.

Q: Why bother doing this?
A: Because workshop items do not run in offline mode for most games if we only subscribe to them. This enables us to run our workshop items locally offline if we don't have an internet connection for some reason or we simply just want to play our games, with our mods, in Steam's Offline Mode.

Q: Does the console do more than this?
A; Yes. It does a lot more than this. See This Guide for more. There's are lists of commands published on github. Click here[github.com] to see one of them.

This is only a very short guide I decided to publish sharing the workshop_download command.

Q: When I type 'download_item' in the Console 'workshop_download_item' also shows up, what's the difference?
A: I'm not aware of what the difference is. I only ever use the download_item command as this guide shares. Several other commands will show up as you're typing in the console.

Q: My console is full of text and won't scroll. How do I clear it?
A: clear_console