CS2 Match Share Code Decoder

Three numbers and nothing else. The 25 characters after <code>CSGO-</code> are one base-57 number that unpacks to 18 bytes: a 64-bit match ID, a 64-bit outcome ID and a 16-bit token, each stored little-endian. Those are the same three fields Valve's <code>MatchListRequestFullGameInfo</code> message asks for, so the code is a compact way to carry that request around. The map, the score and the players are not in it.

Open the CS2 console and run <code>csgo_download_match</code> followed by the code. The game's own description of that command is "Downloads a match via serial code and starts playback". The steam:// link this tool builds passes the same command as a launch argument, which is useful when the game is not running. Either way the demo has to still exist on Valve's side.

Usually because the demo is gone. CS Demo Manager's documentation puts it at one month: the download link for a match expires a month after the match ends. The code itself keeps decoding forever, because it is only three numbers, so a clean decode here says nothing about whether the file still exists. The other common cause is a typo, covered in the next answer.

Only partly. A match code has no checksum, unlike a crosshair code. The tool can catch a character outside the alphabet (0, 1, capital I, lowercase l and lowercase g are never used) and a code whose value does not fit in 18 bytes, which rules out about 72% of random strings of the right shape. Anything that passes both is a well-formed code. Whether it names a real match is something only Valve's servers can answer.

Same wrapper, different contents. Both are <code>CSGO-</code> plus five groups of five characters from the same 57-character alphabet, and both unpack to 18 bytes. A crosshair code spends its first byte on a checksum and the rest on <code>cl_crosshair</code> settings. A match code spends all 18 on the three IDs. This tool warns you when a pasted code passes the crosshair checksum, since a match code does that only by accident.

Because the code has room for 16 bits of it. Valve's match info carries <code>tv_port</code> as a 32-bit field, and the share code keeps the low two bytes. The reference library's own example shows it: a port of 599906796 goes in, and 55788 comes back out of the same code. The Build a code tab does the same truncation and tells you when it happened.

No. Share codes belong to Valve's matchmaking, and the game only offers them for your recent matches there. A FACEIT match is identified by its match room, and its demo is downloaded from that room, not through <code>csgo_download_match</code>.

No. Decoding and building are arithmetic that runs in your browser, with no network request. Nothing here contacts Steam or Valve either, which is also why the tool cannot tell you who played or what the score was.