what's in The Sims 4 folder and wtf does it mean
what's in The Sims 4 folder and wtf does it mean
Showing your around your “The Sims 4” folder and explaining how it works!
I play The Sims every night on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/lilsimsie
SUPER helpful explanation of the files: https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2014/0…
My favorite mod: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ui-chea…
Find me elsewhere!
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Content
0 -> I feel like a lot of people are just a
little bit intimidated by our Sims 4 folder.
4.08 -> Like, opening this up and seeing all
these weird files and these weird names
6.96 -> that you don't fully understand
might be a little bit scary.
9.36 -> I know a lot of people are kind
of scared to download mods or
11.88 -> delete anything in case they mess something up.
13.56 -> You also might not really know which of these
15.36 -> files is important to backup in
case you don't want to lose it.
17.88 -> So today I want to walk you through your Sims
4 folder and explain what these things mean
21.72 -> and explain which ones actually matter
or which ones you could safely delete.
24.96 -> I get asked about this all the time so I
thought making a video might be helpful.
28.98 -> So in like, very basic terms, a lot of
the games or programs on your computer
32.82 -> are going to have folders that
store information about them.
35.28 -> And in your Sims folder for example,
you'll find things like your saves,
38.58 -> all of the screenshots you've taken, maybe
any lots that you've saved to your library.
42.3 -> This is where you would install mods and
it also generates files when there's like,
45.78 -> crashes or glitches in your game.
47.4 -> And I think that's where it gets a little bit
scary because I assume most of us understand
50.46 -> what our screenshots and saves are doing in
here, but like, what's this cache folder?
53.94 -> What are these last crashes and last exceptions?
55.8 -> So let's start going through this, okay,
first, to actually get to this folder.
59.52 -> On your computer if you go to documents
and then open the Electronic Arts folder,
63.78 -> you'll find The Sims 4 folder.
65.58 -> I've got a couple other Sims games
so I have like, a Sims 3 one,
68.04 -> I have a Sims 4 CAS demo one, I've got The Sims
Medieval, but we need The Sims 4 obviously.
73.2 -> And a few of these things are a lot more
important than others, so I'm gonna start there.
76.8 -> Number one most important is the saves folder,
79.8 -> this is gonna have all of the
files that are your saved games.
82.8 -> So when you open The Sims and you press load game
and you have a list of all your different saves,
86.94 -> those files in your saves folder are these files.
90.18 -> The naming conventions of these are a little
bit weird and I've kind of messed mine up.
93.66 -> Yours probably look a little bit something
like this, it's going to say slot,
96.66 -> underscore, probably a bunch of zeros, a
number and then like, a version number.
100.44 -> You'll have a few versions because
they're like, backups of older saves.
103.74 -> So for example in this save last night I
was doing a build so I've got a bunch of
107.34 -> different versions because I was saving a lot
and they're all like, a half an hour apart.
110.46 -> So if something happens and you want to
revert to an old save, you can do that.
113.88 -> I personally make backups of my saves folder,
I like, upload it to my Google Drive and I've
118.26 -> got backups on a hard drive because I am really
attached to my Sims and I've got some saves that
123 -> I've been playing with for literally years,
and I would be devastated if I lost them.
127.08 -> So if I were you, I would probably recommend
making a backup of that saves folder as well.
131.28 -> And depending on how you play the game you also
133.56 -> might want to make a backup
of your screenshots folder.
136.14 -> In here it just saves all the screenshots you ever
138.54 -> take when you like, press C
in game and take a picture.
140.88 -> I kind of save these in my screenshots
folder and I also have a backup elsewhere,
144.54 -> but I also have like, let's plays on YouTube
that I want to keep these things for.
148.02 -> You might not care as much about
this. I also don't save like,
150.84 -> every screenshot, I kind of go
through here sometimes and like,
153.12 -> categorize the good ones and delete the bad ones
or like, delete random build ones I don't need.
157.56 -> Like, for example, do I really need this
picture? No, I could probably delete that one.
161.52 -> Something extremely important
to note though when it comes
164.04 -> to deleting things out of your Sims folder
is to never do it when your game is open.
168.12 -> So like, my game is open right now, I'm gonna
close that first and then mess with the folder.
172.8 -> And now that it's closed, I can delete
some of these bad screenshots or like,
176.28 -> organize the good ones into
better folders and stuff.
178.62 -> Next is this tray folder and this
is actually your in-game library,
182.88 -> so you know when you make a Sim and it says like,
save household to library and start playing,
186.72 -> or if you like, download a lot off the
gallery and you save it to your library?
190.38 -> This is where it saves. You can see that I
have a lot of files here in my tray folder.
196.02 -> This is the kind of thing that you might
want to back up if you've got any like,
199.14 -> special households or special
builds that you're really proud of.
201.78 -> I personally don't back up this folder
because I post everything to the gallery,
205.44 -> and that may be a mistake because
sometimes the gallery is like,
208.5 -> very annoying to work with and hard to
find my older stuff, but it's too late now.
212.34 -> I didn't save that stuff from like, 2018, so.
215.16 -> Oh wait, look, 2018! I don't know what that is,
but there's something in there from back then.
219.66 -> But basically all of those files correspond to
whatever you have saved on this library tab.
224.22 -> So if you have anything in
here that's important to you,
226.5 -> I probably wouldn't mess with that tray folder.
228.54 -> There's also a recorded videos folder and this one
230.88 -> has all of the videos that
you've recorded in game.
233.16 -> If you press V, it starts recording.
234.96 -> And I'm gonna be honest, I don't use
this, I film with like, external programs.
238.92 -> Literally every single one
of these videos that's here,
241.08 -> I filmed by accident by like,
pressing V accidentally.
243.9 -> I don't even know what they are, they're
probably like, random footage -- oh my god, wow.
247.62 -> Okay, that's kind of sad. That's my Sim dying.
250.92 -> This is me trying to take a
screenshot, I think, of my sim dying.
253.86 -> Wow, okay, there's also like,
random build footage I think.
256.74 -> See, like, I just pressed it
by accident and then stopped.
259.5 -> I don't need any of these.
What is that? What is that!
262.62 -> So I would probably delete these, but I guess
I should probably go through them first in case
266.7 -> there's like, footage of of my legacy founder
dying anywhere because apparently I have this.
271.02 -> But if you use this and it's important to you,
you might want to save a backup of this as well.
275.04 -> It's just not really a thing that I use.
276.96 -> The last like, majorly important thing to
back up is your mods folder, if you use mods.
282.24 -> This is also how you download mods,
283.92 -> you just open up the mods folder
and then place those files in here.
286.62 -> A couple things to note here: number one,
288.3 -> this resource.cfg file comes with the
game and you need that for mods to work.
292.62 -> The rest of these folders are subfolders
that I made to help myself like,
296.04 -> organize my mods, and you can totally do that.
298.08 -> When you're downloading a mod, all you really need
to do is just drop it in the mods folder and then
301.98 -> it works, but because I've got a few things, I
find it easier to organize them in subfolders.
306.12 -> So for example, this like,
archway window my friend made,
308.58 -> I'm gonna put that in the build category.
310.2 -> I've also got a few random CAS things like
some CC hairs for my Not So Berry challenge.
314.04 -> Uh, this one's a Peppa Pig costume,
that's Blobby from Hotel Transylvania,
318.36 -> but if you wanted to you could
have this in subfolders as well,
321.36 -> you could have like, a hair folder,
an eyebrow folder, a shoes folder.
324.9 -> I don't really use a ton of CC, but
I used to organize things by like,
327.84 -> age too, I would have like, a
children folder for all my kids CC.
331.2 -> I want to show you how to download
mods really fast and this is one of
334.26 -> my absolute favorite ones of all
time called UI Cheats Extension.
337.62 -> If you've ever seen one of my videos and
seen me like, cheat my Sim's needs by like,
341.22 -> clicking up the energy need just a
tiny bit, or like, right clicking on
344.4 -> the money and adding simoleons, or cheating
the seasons or weather, this is how I did it.
348.36 -> I'm gonna link this down below in
case you want to download it too,
350.76 -> but basically all you have
to do is download this file.
352.74 -> It's gonna save a zip file to my computer.
I'm going to want to unzip that, open it up,
356.58 -> and I'm gonna see these two files right here.
358.62 -> Literally all I have to do is
drop those into my mods folder.
361.8 -> This one is what's called a script mod
so it's kind of like a bigger mod than
366 -> just like, a hairstyle or a shirt or something.
368.1 -> So it's got this dot TS4ScriptFile and this dot
PackageFile, you're gonna need both of those.
373.38 -> And then in your game settings, click
on other and make sure you've enabled
376.56 -> custom content and mods, and you
also have script mods allowed.
379.5 -> And then it should work,
that's all you need to do.
381.36 -> One thing to know is that script mods really
often break when there's game updates.
385.38 -> So when The Sims 4 has a big patch and
it changes some things it might break
388.56 -> some stuff the mod was relying
on, so the creator has to like,
391.08 -> go back in and fix it and they're usually
really fast about fixing those things.
394.38 -> But for example with things like UI cheats,
396.36 -> you probably have to delete it and
re-download it after big patches.
399 -> So just go on their website and like,
400.5 -> check for updates and stuff and then also
when you open your game after a patch,
403.68 -> make sure you re-enable mods because it'll by
default disable them because they usually break.
407.82 -> So you're gonna have to like,
recheck this box basically.
409.92 -> I know downloading mods can seem kind of
scary, but hopefully that helps and again,
413.28 -> if you play with mods, you might
want to back up that mods folder.
416.1 -> But that's pretty much all that I
would like, back up and save copies of.
419.88 -> Now let's get into the other scary things.
This first folder, the cache folder,
423.6 -> is usually empty because it only has files
when you're like, browsing the gallery.
426.96 -> Basically it downloads pictures off
the gallery and puts them in here,
429.72 -> and then it should always delete
them when you close your game.
432.3 -> I guess if for some reason your game is
closed and you still have files in here,
435.72 -> you can delete them, but this one
you can just leave alone basically.
438.3 -> This next one, the cashestr one is kind
of the same thing, this one's got like,
442.08 -> the promo stuff off the front page.
443.88 -> So this like, spotlight file is going to
have all those promotions for the main menu.
447.24 -> And then it says 'en' for English and
then 'US' because that's where I am.
450.6 -> Yours will vary based on your
country and language and stuff.
453.18 -> If you delete this the game will just make
a new one when you next open the game so
456.48 -> you can't get rid of it, but you also
don't really need to worry about that.
459.06 -> This next one the ConfigOverride folder
461.28 -> is where you can replace a few
configuration files yourself.
463.5 -> I'm gonna be honest ,I have never
done this, I have no need to do this.
466.92 -> This is like, high level stuff that
doesn't really apply to most of us.
469.68 -> It's also empty unless you put anything in
there yourself so you don't really need to
472.98 -> worry about it, but I am going to link this down
below in case you want to read more about it.
476.28 -> I also found this page, this like
user files explained page which
480.12 -> answers everything I am saying to you,
but maybe in a little bit more detail.
484.02 -> I'm doing some like, low level explanation and
kind of going off of my own personal experience,
488.4 -> but this is gonna have a lot
more information for you.
490.8 -> So I'll have this linked down below too
if you've got any more specific questions.
493.98 -> Okay, next is this Content folder
and this one has the SDX drops in it.
498.12 -> Basically the SDX drops are like, mini
patches and they're kind of like mods,
501.9 -> like The Sims is sending you
a mod for their own game.
504.48 -> And then when they do a real patch, like around
once a month, these things get installed for real.
508.92 -> If you delete these files, you're
gonna have to re-download the SDX drop.
512.04 -> At least until the like, main patch
comes out next month or whenever it is.
515.76 -> This custom music folder has subfolders
for all of the radio stations in game.
519.96 -> I've actually never tested this out, but
I think if you download MP3 files and then
523.8 -> put them into a radio station folder,
they should play on the radio in game.
527.76 -> I don't really know if it works or like, how good
it sounds, but that is what that is there for.
531.42 -> This onlinethumbnailcache folder is
kind of like those other cache folders.
535.26 -> This one downloads images when you click on like,
537.72 -> the pack information on the main menu,
but this one does not auto delete.
541.62 -> So I've got a few photos in here, it looks
like I've got like, this one from a kit.
545.64 -> This one is just like, a random Sim
in CAS, I don't even know what that
549.12 -> is promoting to be honest, but you can
delete these, you don't need these.
552 -> Yours might even be huge, but it's totally
fine and totally safe to delete those.
555.66 -> It'll just re-download them when you click on
the promo thing again or whatever, but like,
560.04 -> you don't need those things, so
there's no point in keeping them.
562.32 -> Skipping past the ones we already
did down to VideoCameraStates. This
566.28 -> one saves the video camera positions you've made.
568.56 -> Honestly I think that most of
you may have seen these before,
571.38 -> but just not realized what was going on.
573.48 -> So if you're ever playing Sims and you hit
a key by accident and the camera just like,
577.38 -> jumps randomly all of a sudden, that's because
you've got a saved position with that number.
581.7 -> So just then I pressed five and it brings
me to like, where I've set the five to be,
585.9 -> but if I'm being honest, I
don't remember setting that.
588.54 -> I probably did it by accident. You can
set those by holding control and a number,
592.26 -> so if I wanted to get like, a really
nice saved position of my Sim's face,
595.5 -> maybe I'll like, kind of zoom in, get a
good angle, press Ctrl+5 to set it as five.
600 -> And then if I go back out
and then press five again,
602.4 -> it'll bring me back to where I had the camera.
604.32 -> And then if you're in tab
mode, like the camera mode,
606.66 -> if you press it there it's kind of
cinematic, it looks pretty good.
609.84 -> This is really useful if you're trying to
make like, cinematic recordings and like,
613.8 -> make machinimas and stuff, but for the
average person, you might not need this.
617.16 -> You'll probably see it the most when you're
trying to like, raise objects up and down.
621.06 -> You may have like, tried to press
9 to raise an object to like,
624.42 -> put it on a shelf or something, and the
camera just kept jumping when you press 9.
628.02 -> Basically you can delete this file to
like, reset those saved camera states.
632.04 -> Genuinely to fix this, I've started just holding
control while raising and lowering things which
636.96 -> I guess is making the problem worse because
I'm technically setting like, a new camera
640.68 -> stage each time I press it, but frankly I just
forget all the time and I find it so annoying,
645.24 -> so just holding control makes me like, set a
new one instead of switching to the old one.
649.32 -> Which I don't want to deal with,
so basically feel free to delete
652.08 -> this because it will just reset and like,
generate you a new default one instead.
655.86 -> But again, never delete anything
when you have your game open.
659.34 -> Do not delete files or download
files when the game is running.
663 -> Please only edit this folder when the game
is closed, just to not mess anything up.
666.48 -> Anyway, next we have a bunch of scary
files, so what are all of these?
669.96 -> Most of these things you just
kind of have to leave alone.
672.24 -> For example, this avatarcache one is
one of those that stores gallery images,
675.6 -> but I also am pretty sure it's only
for Mac, but I still have it on my PC.
679.38 -> Just leave it alone.
680.22 -> This one, this clientDB one is for photography,
this Config one we kind of talked about with
685.32 -> that ConfigOverride folder, and we decided
to not mess with it because it's got like,
689.1 -> information on the configurations of your system.
690.96 -> And then of course you could override it
if you want to, but you don't want to.
694.62 -> At least most of us don't want to, and if you did,
696.78 -> you're probably not still watching this video
because you probably already knew these things.
700.44 -> This ConnectionStatus one can
be used for troubleshooting
703.2 -> any connection issues you might have.
704.64 -> This events one is more just like, cache data.
707.04 -> This Gameversion one displays
the current game version,
709.62 -> like it just says what version
of the game you last opened.
712.5 -> Basically just leave all those things alone.
714.3 -> This last crash one though you can delete.
716.52 -> This is like, logs based on
any crashes your game has had.
719.46 -> This file is like, not
readable by a normal person,
721.98 -> only EA can read this and get anything
useful out of it, so you can delete that.
725.64 -> Same with all these last exception
files, you can delete those.
728.34 -> This one logs exceptions. Some of you may have
been playing with mods before and had like,
733.14 -> a little orange pop-up say
like, exception generated.
735.9 -> It basically like, tells you about an
error in the game and I guess these
739.44 -> things can give you some information on
it, but this is not really readable by me.
743.4 -> Like, I don't really get anything
useful out of this. All of these,
746.46 -> both the last exceptions and the last
UI exceptions, can be safely deleted.
750.42 -> It'll just give you new ones
if you have more exceptions,
752.82 -> but again, it's not really a thing
that like, the average person needs.
755.64 -> This one, the localthumbcache is
also one of those cache files.
759 -> You can also delete this because it'll
recreate itself when you've deleted it.
762.3 -> And honestly I didn't know this, but when I was
doing my research, I learned that you're always
766.44 -> supposed to delete this after downloading
new mods because it just generates itself
770.1 -> again so I'm gonna delete that and then when
I open my game next, it'll give me a new one.
773.64 -> This notify.glob is like,
your gallery notifications.
776.58 -> It's your like, global notifications
basically. Don't delete that,
779.94 -> just leave it, let it do its thing.
781.5 -> Okay, this options folder actually is kind of
783.9 -> important. This one has all
of your game settings saved.
786.66 -> So if you've like, edited your graphic
settings or changed anything like that,
789.72 -> it's going to be saved there.
790.86 -> This might be the kind of thing you want to
back up or like, move over to your new computer.
795.06 -> If you like, get a new laptop
and re-download The Sims,
798 -> you might want to bring this options folder
just so all your settings are still there.
800.88 -> Obviously you can just redo it,
802.44 -> like it's not that hard to fix your graphic
settings, but that's what that thing is.
805.14 -> ReticulatedSplines is more just like,
cache data basically, just leave it.
808.74 -> This one though, ReticulatedSplinesView is
data on all of the packs that you've bought.
813.48 -> That sounds scarier than it is, it's
not actually like, your pack data,
816.36 -> this is just like, you know when you
have those pop-ups that say like,
818.76 -> new content downloaded, and it shows you like,
all the things that came in Outdoor Retreat?
822.54 -> This ReticulatedSplinesView just keeps track
of what new content has been shown to you,
826.86 -> so if you delete this and then reopen your game,
it's going to re-go through all of the packs
831.54 -> that you own and show up with those pop-ups
that are like, you bought Luxury Party stuff!
834.78 -> You bought Cottage Living! New content added!
Like, it's just gonna go through all that again.
838.56 -> And it will do it for every single pack
you own, so probably don't delete that one.
842.46 -> This UserData one also has like,
some more data, don't mess with it.
845.46 -> And then this last one, this like user
settings one, also has some more info
848.52 -> on like, tutorials you've done and
like, some UI settings you've set.
851.16 -> You can also just leave that. That's kind of the
theme here, most of these things should just be
855.72 -> left alone, but if you do delete something,
it's not gonna like, ruin your whole game.
859.32 -> So if you do break something or you're
having like, a really weird issue,
863.04 -> sometimes an option to try and fix it is to
have your game generate a new Sims 4 folder.
867.54 -> It's really easy to do, all you have to do is
like, move your existing one off to the desktop.
871.62 -> Maybe back it up first, like save your
saves and stuff that are important,
875.1 -> but then when you reload the game, it's
just gonna generate a new fresh one.
878.4 -> Annoyingly, it also resets all of your
settings because I deleted the settings folder.
882.6 -> Listen to that, it's even playing me
music, I usually have the music off.
885.84 -> Oh wow, okay, Sims delivery incoming
because I technically deleted those.
889.74 -> The menu is kind of scary,
I have no saves. It like,
893.76 -> totally ruins all your graphic settings too,
I usually play with my UI like, way scaled up.
897.84 -> But you can see it generated me
like, a fresh new Sims 4 folder,
900.84 -> all of that stuff is back, back to normal.
902.46 -> So if you mess with something,
you can fix it that way.
905.04 -> I don't need that, I want my real
folder back, I want Sims 4 backup real.
910.5 -> No, I'll put it back to Sims 4 and then it's
all set, it'll work just like normal again.
914.1 -> I realized that this video was
ridiculously long and I talked like,
918.42 -> way too much so hopefully this
is okay and still helpful.
921.96 -> Like I mentioned, I'm gonna link this
website down below because this has
925.5 -> really helpful information about all
of these things and what they mean.
928.56 -> I also use this a lot when trying to explain
it because I knew most of this stuff,
932.4 -> but there were some things that I
have never thought about before.
934.62 -> If I'm being honest I don't really
think about clientDB.package much,
939.36 -> so I wasn't aware of that either.
941.28 -> But I do think it can be helpful
to like, understand what's going
943.98 -> on in here just to make yourself feel a
little bit better about messing with it.
946.74 -> Because this definitely can be scary sometimes.
948.66 -> If you like Sims videos, I make a lot
of them here on my YouTube channel.
951.84 -> I do mostly like, play The Sims,
I don't usually spend this long
955.44 -> just talking about a random folder on my computer.
957.78 -> But I have done a few tutorially
type things before so I can link
961.08 -> those down below for you too if
you want to watch them as well.
963.18 -> And with that being said, I'm gonna cut this
964.92 -> one right here and I'll catch you
all tomorrow, okay? Bye everybody.
968.52 -> Oh my god, I've been recording for an hour.
970.98 -> I really hope this video is not that long.
973.32 -> I thought it was gonna be like,
10 minutes long, this is bad.
975.78 -> This is too long. It's like,
too long to be helpful.
978.36 -> [ JAZZY OUTRO MUSIC ]
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4mnZe6aE_s