Backing Up Saves in The Sims 4 - Keep Your Sims Safe!

Sul Sul!

We know that your saves are more than just Sims; they’re legacies, builds, and finely crafted stories. This is why backing up your saves in The Sims 4 is not only recommended, but essential for your peace of mind. It’s heartbreaking to accidentally overwrite a save folder, encounter a hardware failure, or lose a save file, so we’re here to help you prevent it from happening. 

There are other reasons to back up your save files as well. Did your favorite Sim just get attacked by the killer rabbit? Simply restore a backup save like it never happened. Just had your 99th baby in the 100 Baby Challenge? You’ll definitely want a backup save before moving on to baby 100. 

How often should I be backing up my saves?

It's best practice to backup your saves regularly, say on a weekly basis as well as prior to any major game changes or in-game events. These might be base game updates, installing a new pack, finishing up an epic build, or even adding mods. This is because you're making changes to The Sims 4 file system structure, which has the chance, even if small, of corrupting a save file.

If you're planning to use a new computer or even are moving the location of that computer, you will also want to back just in case anything happens and you can transfer over all your families and builds to your new PC. 

Backing up your save files:

For Windows users:

• Go to My Documents.
• Open the Electronic Arts folder.
• Find The Sims 4 folder.
• Right-click on it and choose Copy.
• Go to your Desktop.
• Additionally, you can copy this folder to a flash drive or Cloud storage.
• Right-click on a free space and choose Paste.
• Right-click on the copied folder and choose Rename.

Change the name of the folder to something you’ll remember like "Sims 4 Backup".

For Mac users: 

• Open Finder by clicking on the Finder icon on your Dock.
• In the Finder window navigate to your Documents folder.
• Open the Electronic Arts folder.
• Click once on The Sims 4 folder to select it.
• Press Command & C on your keyboard to copy the folder.
• Go to your Desktop.
• Additionally, you can copy this folder to a flash drive or Cloud storage.
• Right click on a free space on the desktop and click on Paste Item to paste your backup folder.
• Rename the folder on your desktop by clicking on it and pressing Return, then entering the new name. 

Change it to something you'll remember, like "Sims 4 Backup".

Restoring your save files:

For Windows users:

• Go to My Documents.
• Open the Electronic Arts folder.
• Click on The Sims 4 folder and press Delete.
• Confirm you want to delete the file.
• Empty your Recycle Bin.
• Go to your Desktop.
• Right-click on your backup folder and choose Rename.
• Change the folder name back to The Sims 4.
• Right-click on the folder and choose Copy.
• Go to My Documents.
• Open the Electronic Arts folder.
• Right-click on a blank space in the folder and choose Paste. 

For Mac users: 

• Open Finder by clicking on the Finder icon in the Dock.
• In the Finder window navigate to your Documents folder.
• Open the Electronic Arts folder.
• Right click on The Sims 4 folder and select "Move to Bin" to delete it.
• Go to your Desktop
• Click on your backup folder.
• Press Return and change the folder name back to The Sims 4.
• Press Command & C on your keyboard to copy the folder.
• Open Finder.
• Open your Documents folder.
• Open the Electronic Arts folder.
• Click on a blank space in the folder and press Command & V to paste your backup folder. 

Once the above steps are complete and you've verified your saves are present in game, you can safely delete the backup folder on your Desktop. 

Restoring a “.ver” Save File:

Please note that The Sims 4 automatically creates a backup of autosaves that can be found in your save directory as “.ver0”, “.ver1”, etc. as well. 

These can be restored via either of the following methods:

Method 1: Use the in-game "Recover Save" feature:

• Launch The Sims 4 and select Load Game from the main menu.
• In the menu that appears, select the save you want to restore.
• Click the Recover Save button, which looks like a floppy disk icon.
• Choose the specific save version you want to restore and click Recover.
• Confirm your choice by clicking Yes.

Method 2: Renaming the save file:

• Exit The Sims 4 completely.
• Navigate to your The Sims 4 saves folder.
• Find the file with the same name as your save, but with the “.ver” extension (e.g., “Slot_00000002.save.ver0”).
• Right-click the .ver file, and rename it by deleting the “.ver” at the end, so it becomes “Slot_00000002.save”.
• If you have multiple “.ver” files, the lower version number (eg, ver0) corresponds to the most recently created backup.
• Launch The Sims 4 and check your "Load Game" menu for the restored save.

If you have any issues with the above processes, you can always reach out in our Technical Issues sections of The Sims forums for PC here, or for Mac here for additional assistance.