Its been a problem for a while...
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006264913

Yes there is a way to fix this but it's a bit complicated and requires using context to identify in code what the corresponding screenshot is.

It can be achieved in 8 steps (most of them are pretty simple) but a few may be a bit more difficult. You will need to adjust your approach for one of the steps (Step 7) depending on whether you are just deleting one screenshot among multiple screenshots within a game, or if you are deleting all of the screenshots associated with a game.

It may be different for you since this is specific to my case but this should give you a helpful guideline. For me the images are corrupted because I did not take them with steam but instead took them with my computer's built in screenshot function and then went into my local disk and copied them from there to steam so that steam would locate them, so that I could upload them as screenshots rather than art. And then I deleted them from my computer (not steam). In your case, if you took your screenshot with steams screenshot feature yours might be slightly different but this should still help. If you have any questions just ask. I should be able to respond within 24 hours as I usually log on steam daily.


You can follow along with this video I made and/or read the instructions below.
https://youtu.be/931wINjAYqw

and here is a somewhat
helpful Image [postimg.cc]
image url : https://postimg.cc/zLVZWDfS
⚠️Please note this image was made before I knew the difference between the "large" game id number and the "small" screenshot number. Please adjust your approach accordingly.
For more details see the notes in Step 7⚠️ It is advised to follow along with the video rather than the image.

Step 1. Open steam and go to View > Screenshots
- Find one of the corrupted files you want to remove.

Step 2. Look at any surrounding non corrupt screenshots you have and take a mental note or write down the date and time of those screenshots.

Step 3. Now with one of your non corrupt screenshots highlighted, click the "Show on Disk" button (with the folder icon)
- This opens a folder on your computer where the screenshot you had highlighted is located.
- You should also take a mental note or write down the number that appears in the address bar between remote and screenshots, as that is the game id number for the game you selected earlier in step 3.




Step 4. Now navigate with the "up one level" button until you reach a folder with a subfolder named "remote" and a file named "screenshots.vdf"
Alternatively just click on the number before \remote in the address bar or click on remote in the address bar and then click "up one level" once.
for example :

Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\194665735\760\remote\438100\screenshots

I would click on \760\, or click on \remote\, and then the "up one level" button once.
- Open the screenshots.vdf file in notepad.


💡Alternatively for step 5 you can search for the game id number rather than the date. (as shown in the video) This may make the process a bit easier. Read step 5 or step 7 to find out how to identify the game id number. 💡

Step 5. Search (control +f) the notepad file for the dates of the non corrupted screenshots (from step 2) in the format yearmonthday (20231017)
- additionally look for any captions you have for these files to help identify which string of code is the corresponding screenshot
- Identify the "Large" game id number for example "224260"
make sure that it corresponds to the game for which the corrupted screenshot belongs to. You can do this by going back to step 1 and for step 2 highlight a screenshot belonging to the same game as the corrupted screenshot. (for instance if your corrupted screenshot is for the game F.E.A.R. go back to your screenshot manager in steam highlight one of your non corrupted screenshots for F.E.A.R. and then click the show on disk button. We can see the gameid for F.E.A.R. now in the address bar because it will be the number after \remote\ and before \screenshots. for instance I can see

Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\194665735\760\remote\21090\screenshots

So the game id would be 21090

Step 6.
Use chronological order to identify the "small" screenshot number ex "0" or "1" Carefully compare each string of code with your screenshots in steams screenshot manager to identify which code corresponds to which image.

⚠️🛑Do not proceed unless you are certain you have the correct string of code.🛑⚠️

STEP 7 . We must adjust our approach now depending on if you are deleting just an individual screenshot or all of the screenshots for a game.

STEP 7 A. IF you are deleting just an individual screenshot within a game and NOT deleting all of the screenshots within the game. Highlight all of the code you've identified as the corrupt screenshot's corresponding code. for example highlight all of this starting after the 🟢 and ending before the 🔴 :

"224260"
{
🟢"0"
{
"type" "1"
"filename" "224260/screenshots/20230708154222_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "224260/screenshots/thumbnails/20230708154222_1.jpg"
"vrfilename" ""
"imported" "1"
"location" "nmo_anxiety"
"width" "1280"
"height" "600"
"gameid" "224260"
"creation" "1688845342"
"caption" ""
"Permissions" "2"
"hscreenshot" "18446744073709551615"
}🔴
"1"
{
"type" ....
}

🟢the starting point is the open quotation mark around the number 🟢"0"
🔴the stopping point is the first close curly brackets }🔴
and the very next line would be another number like "1" if you have multiple screenshots in the same game, or another number like "224260" if the next screenshot chronologically belongs to a different game.

🗒️Your numbers will be different than these I'm just using mine as an example.

🧠💡⚠️These long numbers in quotations correspond to certain games you have. As you can tell by their corresponding "gameid" "number" ex "gameid" "224260".
This can be helpful because you can tell if you're looking at screenshots from the same game or from a different game.

We can also tell by, :
"filename" "224260/screenshots/20230708154222_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "224260/screenshots/thumbnails/20230708154222_1.jpg"

that this string of code will manage both the full screenshot and it's thumbnail.

(If you look at your screenshots after Step 3. (Show on disk) You'll notice that there are 2 copies of the same screenshot. One in the "screenshots" parent folder and another in a sub/child folder "thumbnails")

⚠️
The smaller numbers like "0" or "1" that are indented from the larger numbers represent the individual screenshots within a game. It's important to discern between whether you are deleting ALL of the screenshots for the game or just ONE of the screenshots or a few of them.💡🧠


Once you have the string of code highlighted exactly from the starting point " and the ending point } delete the highlighted code. Remove any gapped lines left behind if there are any, and save the file.
⚠️You should keep this notepad file open, in case you need to undo any changes. alternatively before you've deleted the string of code copy the entire notepad file and save it somewhere as a backup in case you need to revert back to the start.⚠️💾⏪

STEP 7 B IF you are deleting ALL of the screenshots for a game we can adjust the start and end points of the code you will delete as such. :

🟢"893850"
{
"0"
{
"type" "1"
"filename" "893850/screenshots/20230806024810_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "893850/screenshots/thumbnails/20230806024810_1.jpg"
"vrfilename" ""
"imported" "1"
"width" "3840"
"height" "2160"
"gameid" "893850"
"creation" "1691304490"
"caption" ""
"Permissions" "2"
"hscreenshot" "18446744073709551615"
}
"1"
{
"type" "1"
"filename" "893850/screenshots/20230806024747_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "893850/screenshots/thumbnails/20230806024747_1.jpg"
"vrfilename" ""
"imported" "1"
"width" "3840"
"height" "2160"
"gameid" "893850"
"creation" "1691304467"
"caption" ""
"Permissions" "2"
"hscreenshot" "18446744073709551615"
}
}🔴
"206480"

in this case we are moving beyond just the individual screenshot and deleting all (in this case 2 ) of the screenshots associated with the game.

The next "large" number would represent another game's screenshots.

Step 7C. IF you wanted to delete MULTIPLE screenshots within a single game, but not ALL of the game's screenshots. You can just carefully repeat step 7A for each screenshot while carefully leaving the ones you want to keep alone.

Step 8. Restart steam and check to see if the corrupt file(s) is are gone. If it/they is/are congratulations you have succeeded in your mission of removing (a) corrupt screenshot(s) from steam. Repeat the process for each corrupt screenshot you want to remove. Or if you're confident in your ability to identify the corresponding codes you can delete multiple or all of them at once.

If the screenshot isn't gone or you find that you've deleted the wrong screenshot by mistake, go back to the note pad file and undo any changes you've made. Or if you had made the backup file you can copy its contents and replace the actual files content with it.
Try the process over again and more carefully discern which string of code is corresponding to your corrupted screenshot.

it really sounds more complicated than it actually is. The most difficult part is just making sure you've identified the correct lines of code. Just take your time and make sure to proceed with caution and you should be alright.

If you need any more help just let me know.



I apologize for the confusion as when I started writing this I didn't know the difference between the different approaches for step 7.

(In the video, the image appears as another date corresponding to the date I downloaded the file (in the image properties october 9th ) rather than the date that I titled the file with october 17th)

Originally posted by VVithershins:

Yes there is a way to fix this but it's a bit complicated and requires using context to identify in code what the corresponding screenshot is.

It can be achieved in 8 steps (most of them are pretty simple) but a few may be a bit more difficult. You will need to adjust your approach for one of the steps (Step 7) depending on whether you are just deleting one screenshot among multiple screenshots within a game, or if you are deleting all of the screenshots associated with a game.

It may be different for you since this is specific to my case but this should give you a helpful guideline. For me the images are corrupted because I did not take them with steam but instead took them with my computer's built in screenshot function and then went into my local disk and copied them from there to steam so that steam would locate them, so that I could upload them as screenshots rather than art. And then I deleted them from my computer (not steam). In your case, if you took your screenshot with steams screenshot feature yours might be slightly different but this should still help. If you have any questions just ask. I should be able to respond within 24 hours as I usually log on steam daily.


You can follow along with this video I made and/or read the instructions below.
https://youtu.be/931wINjAYqw

and here is a somewhat
helpful Image [postimg.cc]
image url : https://postimg.cc/zLVZWDfS
⚠️Please note this image was made before I knew the difference between the "large" game id number and the "small" screenshot number. Please adjust your approach accordingly.
For more details see the notes in Step 7⚠️ It is advised to follow along with the video rather than the image.

Step 1. Open steam and go to View > Screenshots
- Find one of the corrupted files you want to remove.

Step 2. Look at any surrounding non corrupt screenshots you have and take a mental note or write down the date and time of those screenshots.

Step 3. Now with one of your non corrupt screenshots highlighted, click the "Show on Disk" button (with the folder icon)
- This opens a folder on your computer where the screenshot you had highlighted is located.
- You should also take a mental note or write down the number that appears in the address bar between remote and screenshots, as that is the game id number for the game you selected earlier in step 3.




Step 4. Now navigate with the "up one level" button until you reach a folder with a subfolder named "remote" and a file named "screenshots.vdf"
Alternatively just click on the number before \remote in the address bar or click on remote in the address bar and then click "up one level" once.
for example :

Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\194665735\760\remote\438100\screenshots

I would click on \760\, or click on \remote\, and then the "up one level" button once.
- Open the screenshots.vdf file in notepad.


💡Alternatively for step 5 you can search for the game id number rather than the date. (as shown in the video) This may make the process a bit easier. Read step 5 or step 7 to find out how to identify the game id number. 💡

Step 5. Search (control +f) the notepad file for the dates of the non corrupted screenshots (from step 2) in the format yearmonthday (20231017)
- additionally look for any captions you have for these files to help identify which string of code is the corresponding screenshot
- Identify the "Large" game id number for example "224260"
make sure that it corresponds to the game for which the corrupted screenshot belongs to. You can do this by going back to step 1 and for step 2 highlight a screenshot belonging to the same game as the corrupted screenshot. (for instance if your corrupted screenshot is for the game F.E.A.R. go back to your screenshot manager in steam highlight one of your non corrupted screenshots for F.E.A.R. and then click the show on disk button. We can see the gameid for F.E.A.R. now in the address bar because it will be the number after \remote\ and before \screenshots. for instance I can see

Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\194665735\760\remote\21090\screenshots

So the game id would be 21090

Step 6.
Use chronological order to identify the "small" screenshot number ex "0" or "1" Carefully compare each string of code with your screenshots in steams screenshot manager to identify which code corresponds to which image.

⚠️🛑Do not proceed unless you are certain you have the correct string of code.🛑⚠️

STEP 7 . We must adjust our approach now depending on if you are deleting just an individual screenshot or all of the screenshots for a game.

STEP 7 A. IF you are deleting just an individual screenshot within a game and NOT deleting all of the screenshots within the game. Highlight all of the code you've identified as the corrupt screenshot's corresponding code. for example highlight all of this starting after the 🟢 and ending before the 🔴 :

"224260"
{
🟢"0"
{
"type" "1"
"filename" "224260/screenshots/20230708154222_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "224260/screenshots/thumbnails/20230708154222_1.jpg"
"vrfilename" ""
"imported" "1"
"location" "nmo_anxiety"
"width" "1280"
"height" "600"
"gameid" "224260"
"creation" "1688845342"
"caption" ""
"Permissions" "2"
"hscreenshot" "18446744073709551615"
}🔴
"1"
{
"type" ....
}

🟢the starting point is the open quotation mark around the number 🟢"0"
🔴the stopping point is the first close curly brackets }🔴
and the very next line would be another number like "1" if you have multiple screenshots in the same game, or another number like "224260" if the next screenshot chronologically belongs to a different game.

🗒️Your numbers will be different than these I'm just using mine as an example.

🧠💡⚠️These long numbers in quotations correspond to certain games you have. As you can tell by their corresponding "gameid" "number" ex "gameid" "224260".
This can be helpful because you can tell if you're looking at screenshots from the same game or from a different game.

We can also tell by, :
"filename" "224260/screenshots/20230708154222_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "224260/screenshots/thumbnails/20230708154222_1.jpg"

that this string of code will manage both the full screenshot and it's thumbnail.

(If you look at your screenshots after Step 3. (Show on disk) You'll notice that there are 2 copies of the same screenshot. One in the "screenshots" parent folder and another in a sub/child folder "thumbnails")

⚠️
The smaller numbers like "0" or "1" that are indented from the larger numbers represent the individual screenshots within a game. It's important to discern between whether you are deleting ALL of the screenshots for the game or just ONE of the screenshots or a few of them.💡🧠


Once you have the string of code highlighted exactly from the starting point " and the ending point } delete the highlighted code. Remove any gapped lines left behind if there are any, and save the file.
⚠️You should keep this notepad file open, in case you need to undo any changes. alternatively before you've deleted the string of code copy the entire notepad file and save it somewhere as a backup in case you need to revert back to the start.⚠️💾⏪

STEP 7 B IF you are deleting ALL of the screenshots for a game we can adjust the start and end points of the code you will delete as such. :

🟢"893850"
{
"0"
{
"type" "1"
"filename" "893850/screenshots/20230806024810_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "893850/screenshots/thumbnails/20230806024810_1.jpg"
"vrfilename" ""
"imported" "1"
"width" "3840"
"height" "2160"
"gameid" "893850"
"creation" "1691304490"
"caption" ""
"Permissions" "2"
"hscreenshot" "18446744073709551615"
}
"1"
{
"type" "1"
"filename" "893850/screenshots/20230806024747_1.jpg"
"thumbnail" "893850/screenshots/thumbnails/20230806024747_1.jpg"
"vrfilename" ""
"imported" "1"
"width" "3840"
"height" "2160"
"gameid" "893850"
"creation" "1691304467"
"caption" ""
"Permissions" "2"
"hscreenshot" "18446744073709551615"
}
}🔴
"206480"

in this case we are moving beyond just the individual screenshot and deleting all (in this case 2 ) of the screenshots associated with the game.

The next "large" number would represent another game's screenshots.

Step 7C. IF you wanted to delete MULTIPLE screenshots within a single game, but not ALL of the game's screenshots. You can just carefully repeat step 7A for each screenshot while carefully leaving the ones you want to keep alone.

Step 8. Restart steam and check to see if the corrupt file(s) is are gone. If it/they is/are congratulations you have succeeded in your mission of removing (a) corrupt screenshot(s) from steam. Repeat the process for each corrupt screenshot you want to remove. Or if you're confident in your ability to identify the corresponding codes you can delete multiple or all of them at once.

If the screenshot isn't gone or you find that you've deleted the wrong screenshot by mistake, go back to the note pad file and undo any changes you've made. Or if you had made the backup file you can copy its contents and replace the actual files content with it.
Try the process over again and more carefully discern which string of code is corresponding to your corrupted screenshot.

it really sounds more complicated than it actually is. The most difficult part is just making sure you've identified the correct lines of code. Just take your time and make sure to proceed with caution and you should be alright.

If you need any more help just let me know.



I apologize for the confusion as when I started writing this I didn't know the difference between the different approaches for step 7.

(In the video, the image appears as another date corresponding to the date I downloaded the file (in the image properties october 9th ) rather than the date that I titled the file with october 17th)

Theres a small problem, the disk I had the game originally... i reformatted it im not sure if i will be able to use your solution, i will try (thank you for all the steps in depth)

I deleted my screenshots.vdf and restarted steam. All the "missing" ones in the screenshot window were finally removed(as what deleting from disk manually used to do). Too bad there's no in-steam way to fix this though.

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:

I deleted my screenshots.vdf and restarted steam. All the "missing" ones in the screenshot window were finally removed(as what deleting from disk manually used to do). Too bad there's no in-steam way to fix this though.

So it automatically rebuilt the .vdf file when you restarted steam? You didn't lose your non-corrupted files? (in the screenshot manager on steam)
This could be a much easier way if so.

Originally posted by VVithershins:

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:

I deleted my screenshots.vdf and restarted steam. All the "missing" ones in the screenshot window were finally removed(as what deleting from disk manually used to do). Too bad there's no in-steam way to fix this though.

So it automatically rebuilt the .vdf file when you restarted steam? You didn't lose your non-corrupted files? (in the screenshot manager on steam)
This could be a much easier way if so.

Well steam is in C Drive, but the vdf was in D drive i reformatted D drive it probably got vopied in C automatically because i can still see the corrupted screenshots

Its easier to just make a print-screen and copy & paste that in your image software, instead of having to go through all of this trouble with the Screenshot Manager.


For example:
Try using the Screenshot Manager without an internet connection, make a screenshot, and then try to delete that screenshot by using Steam... Its an ordeal, even with the 8-steps.

I doubt it was fully tested, or its just not ready yet.

Originally posted by F4TE SL4YER:

Originally posted by VVithershins:

So it automatically rebuilt the .vdf file when you restarted steam? You didn't lose your non-corrupted files? (in the screenshot manager on steam)
This could be a much easier way if so.

Well steam is in C Drive, but the vdf was in D drive i reformatted D drive it probably got vopied in C automatically because i can still see the corrupted screenshots

Apologies for the delayed reply.
In this case I'm not sure what to do since I have no firsthand experience with this scenario under these circumstances(the formatted drive). My sincerest apologies.
I asked a chatbot for help and all they could recommend was contacting steam support.

Originally posted by VVithershins:

Originally posted by F4TE SL4YER:

Well steam is in C Drive, but the vdf was in D drive i reformatted D drive it probably got vopied in C automatically because i can still see the corrupted screenshots

Apologies for the delayed reply.
In this case I'm not sure what to do since I have no firsthand experience with this scenario under these circumstances(the formatted drive). My sincerest apologies.
I asked a chatbot for help and all they could recommend was contacting steam support.

Well thanks for the heads up i will try to deal with it through steam support

Thank you so much for this post @VVithershins, it was very helpfull for me too.

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:

I deleted my screenshots.vdf and restarted steam.

✅SOLVED! Thank you.

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:

I deleted my screenshots.vdf and restarted steam. All the "missing" ones in the screenshot window were finally removed <...>

Just did that, and Steam started flooding me with “Screenshot taken” notifications. But that's the lesser of evils, I guess.

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:

I deleted my screenshots.vdf and restarted steam. All the "missing" ones in the screenshot window were finally removed(as what deleting from disk manually used to do). Too bad there's no in-steam way to fix this though.

Worked for me, thanks a ton man.

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.