DCCache exceeding 280GB

@PokeFan10025  No, this is definitely not normal.  The DCCache folder holds installed store and custom content, in files that end in .ebc and .dbc, respectively.  Anything else in that folder is a temp file and can be deleted.  How large are the files?  I'm curious what's in there; please post a screenshot with the folder showing in detail mode, so I can see the file sizes.

Please also let me know whether you've needed to reinstall your store stuff (and how often), and whether you use OneDrive.

The folder has 1.4k files so it's a bit too big to it into a screenshot, so I'll just write down what I see.

Of the 1.4k files, 740 are DBC and EBC files. Of the 740, only 38 are EBC files - I don't know if that means anything or not. I also have one ENT and 28 IDX files, but they're all small (111KB total).

13 of the 38 EBC files are 1KB each, the remaining 25 is exactly 173,541KB each, which totals to 4.13GB. 

The DBC files, on average, takes up at least 200,000KB, with the smallest being 10 DBC files that are 1KB and the largest being 11 DBC files that are 350,057KB big each, which totals to 147GB.

The rest - 687 files - are Temp files that totals to 147GB. Like the DBC files, they vary in size but most are 200,000KB+ each, with the biggest being 350,057KB as well. 5 is 1KB. 

I've never needed to reinstall the store content, though in fairness I could barely tell what's store content and what's not in the buy mode, so I'm not really certain that I have all of the store content in my game or not. However, my game runs fine and I know that there is store content in my game, and the ones that I could see works fine. I don't use OneDrive. 

I should mention that I have other CC installed other than the store content. Most of it is hairs, clothes, shoes, etc., and some are Nrass stuff. 

@PokeFan10025  The reason I asked about OneDrive is that it can duplicate files, essentially uploading and downloading the same file over and over so that you get multiple copies with slightly different names.  Even though you don't use OneDrive, it sounds like something similar is happening here: for example, you have 25 .ebc files that are exactly the same size.  That shouldn't be possible—even having two the same size is incredibly unlikely due to random chance.  So I'm almost certain that these and the identical .dbc files are duplicates.

Are you running any service that might be syncing your files?  Something has to be duplicating them, unless you're doing it manually, which I think you'd remember.  If you're not sure what might be doing this, how are the duplicates named?  You don't need to list everything, but I'd like to see as an example a screenshot or list of the file names for a group of files that are identical in size.  That might at least give me a clue as to where they're coming from.

For Sims 3 itself, what you can do is remove the entire DCCache folder, launch the game to create a new one, then put back only the original files, not the duplicates and not the temp files.  Both .dbc and .ebc files need to be numbered sequentially starting with zero, for example the game won't read dcdb1.dbc unless dcdb0.dbc is also present.  And it won't read a file named dcdb0 1.dbc or similar.

When you've added just the original files (with the proper names) to the new DCCache folder, you can launch your game once to make sure your content is all present.  If it is, you can delete the duplicates.  That doesn't mean they won't come back, hence the questions above, but in terms of being able to use your content, the duplicates are extraneous.

I'm not sure what could be duplicating it - I don't have any syncing program on my PC. I use Steam to play Sims 3 so I don't know if they could be syncing my game or something. I also still launch the game with the launcher, and reading online I've seen many people have problems with it, so maybe that could play a part somehow?

I'm also not certain what is original and what isn't. I've attached two screenshots; one of one portion of the .ebc files that are the same size and another ordered from name, which as you could see, shows a whole bunch of dcdb0 named files. Unless the original is the oldest one?

@PokeFan10025  The launcher wouldn't be reading any of the files in your screenshots.  It can only recognize a .dbc or .ebc file labeled dcdbX, where X is a number; anything with a timestamp in parentheses like the ones in your screenshots would just be ignored.  Do you see any files at all like that?  If so, those are the ones to keep, and you can trash the rest.  Since you have so many files to sort through, it might help to systematically remove the ones that do have extra characters in their names and see what's left.

Steam has nothing to do with this issue—many of us, myself included, play through Steam—and I doubt the launcher has anything to do with it either, or we'd see a lot more reports.  The fact that there are timestamps strongly suggests that some service is syncing your files: the timestamps are meant to distinguish among different versions of the same files, i.e. this one was uploaded on April 11, this other one on April 19, etc.

If you're absolutely sure OneDrive hasn't enabled itself behind your back, which it's been known to do on occasion, especially after a Windows update, look through the Task Manager's background processes list for anything that doesn't have a Windows logo.  The point of some processes will be obvious, for example if you have an Nvidia graphics card, you'll see a handful of services with the Nvidia logo, but anything that might belong to a data syncing or backup service or that you don't recognize is worth investigating.

I probably should've noticed this sooner, but it turns out that we're talking about two Sims 3 documents here; the My Computer -> Documents -> EA -> Sims 3 > DCCache, i.e., the original one is completely fine. It has no timestamps, has the dcdb(X) files that you've mentioned and is only 11.6GB big - so that's the normal one. 

Turns out the one that is a problem is in File History -> Me -> Data -> C -> Users -> Me -> Documents -> EA etc etc, with 'Me' being a placeholder for my name. 

And the biggest thing I've discovered is that you're almost certainly right - it was likely my OneDrive. I looked at my task manager and OneDrive was running, albeit it was greyed out with a dash through it and was only using my Network. When I saw that I thought that it must've been off, since I've never activated OneDrive on my desktop, but I then looked into my 'Me' folder from my FileHistory and I've found a OneDrive folder full of configuration setting files. And Lord and behold, some of the timestamps in that folder matched the ones in the File History's DCCache folder. 

So I guess it has been syncing behind my back despite me never activating it on my desktop. I've ended OneDrive from my task manager so hopefully that's dealt with, but if I'm wrong let me know how I can kill it for good.

Now that we've (or more like you've) identified the culprit, what should I do with the Sims 3 folder, or frankly, all of the folders in my File History folder? I've looked it at side by side with my Documents folder and it's virtually a carbon copy. 

@PokeFan10025  You can find instructions for uninstalling OneDrive here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0

It's not necessary to uninstall though; you could simply unlink instead.  (I personally never linked in the first place, and OneDrive is still in there somewhere but doesn't interfere.  But when I installed Windows, I specifically created a local account rather than signing into Microsoft.)  Pick the option you like better.

Once OneDrive is out of the picture, you can simply flush everything in the File History directory that you know you don't want to keep.  So that would be everything in DCCache, and possibly everything in general, but you might consider preserving a few older saves, especially if you don't have backups elsewhere.  These can be copied to an external drive or uploaded to some cloud storage service (Google Drive, Dropbox) that doesn't try to sync your files on its own.

Since the game will only read the contents of Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, deleting files stored elsewhere will have no effect.