BLOB File Documentation

Overview

Feature Value
File Format Valve Steam Archive
Extension .blob
Primary Use Steam client metadata storage
Format Type Binary
MIME Type N/A
Encryption Possible, but not inherent
Compression None
Developer Valve Corporation
Introduced Early versions of Steam (2003)
Usage Obsolete for new applications, but still in use for legacy reasons
Data Stored Account details, application state, other metadata
Character Encoding Binary format with no specific character encoding
Readability Not human-readable; requires specialized software or scripts to parse
File Structure Header followed by data segments
Header Contains file type identifier and metadata about the file contents
Access Method Direct access to file contents is not intended; accessed via Steam Client
Update Mechanism Updated through Steam Client updates or manually via file replacement
Platform Windows, macOS, Linux (via Steam Client)
Security Concerns Can contain sensitive information; should be handled securely
Library/SDK Availability Limited; primarily handled by Valve-proprietary tools
Documentation Limited public documentation; mostly community-driven research