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addalily's avatar
addalily
5 years ago
Solved

My Sims 3 taking up way too much storage.

I've recently discovered that my Sims 3 Folder is taking up almost 100GB of my storage and it's pretty worrying, I know that's way too much for this game. I was checking my storage before opening the...
mac
technical issues
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    5 years ago

    @addalily  The only cause I can think of for this kind of issue is iCloud syncing your files and then redownloading them, over and over and over.  Luckily, you can delete most of what you see.  The game won't even use the files with extra numbers in them, for example TravelDB 36.package is useless because the 36 puts it in an unreadable format.

    What I would do in this case is trash all the files with an extra number at the end, but don't empty the trash until you're satisfied your game is working normally.  So for example, in your second screenshot, keep the file labeled China_0x0869db4c.nhd, but delete all the other .nhd files that start with China and end with an extra number.  You should end up with just a handful of original files.

    The next step is to back up the Sims 3 folder, once it's a reasonable size.  Ideally you'd copy it to an external hard drive or cloud storage, but not iCloud, because it's probably causing the issues.  Then go into iCloud settings and disable the automatic syncing of Documents.  This guide is for a different issue, but the relevant settings are the same:

    https://bluebellflora.com/2017/02/06/sims-3-and-sims-4-not-loading-save-games/

    When you do this, what may happen is that your copy of the Sims 3 folder will be moved only to cloud storage, leaving nothing in Documents > Electronic Arts.  You'll need to manually move the folder back, after which point it shouldn't sync again.  Then you can disable iCloud entirely if you want.

    Each time you update your OS, it's possible for iCloud to change its settings on its own, without notifying you.  So after each update, be sure to double-check its settings.

puzzlezaddict's avatar
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
5 years ago

@addalily  There should absolutely not be 4k files inside a save folder.  I have no idea how that would happen, unless the game is endlessly replicating some files instead of using the existing ones.  For a given save, there should only be three files plus two per world that the save has seen, something like this:

(That save was played for around six sim-weeks plus numerous vacations.)

Could you post a couple screenshots of your save folder so I see what you have?  Kuree Save Cleaner is meant to clean individual files, not delete duplicates, so I'm not sure it'll help here.

addalily's avatar
addalily
5 years ago

They're duplicates that go up to over 100. I have a couple screenshots of examples.

TravelDB has files going up to 285.

Meta has files going up to almost 2k.

France_0x0859db50ExportDB files goes up 150.

France_0x0859db50.nhd files go up to 50.

Evansdale County_0x00000000ExportDB files go up to 1.2k.

Evansdale County_0x00000000.nhd goes up to 150. 

And pretty much so on.

1a5tf1l3.dat has the highest amount of duplicates (almost 3k). It's very common for my files to go way over 100. 

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    5 years ago

    @addalily  The only cause I can think of for this kind of issue is iCloud syncing your files and then redownloading them, over and over and over.  Luckily, you can delete most of what you see.  The game won't even use the files with extra numbers in them, for example TravelDB 36.package is useless because the 36 puts it in an unreadable format.

    What I would do in this case is trash all the files with an extra number at the end, but don't empty the trash until you're satisfied your game is working normally.  So for example, in your second screenshot, keep the file labeled China_0x0869db4c.nhd, but delete all the other .nhd files that start with China and end with an extra number.  You should end up with just a handful of original files.

    The next step is to back up the Sims 3 folder, once it's a reasonable size.  Ideally you'd copy it to an external hard drive or cloud storage, but not iCloud, because it's probably causing the issues.  Then go into iCloud settings and disable the automatic syncing of Documents.  This guide is for a different issue, but the relevant settings are the same:

    https://bluebellflora.com/2017/02/06/sims-3-and-sims-4-not-loading-save-games/

    When you do this, what may happen is that your copy of the Sims 3 folder will be moved only to cloud storage, leaving nothing in Documents > Electronic Arts.  You'll need to manually move the folder back, after which point it shouldn't sync again.  Then you can disable iCloud entirely if you want.

    Each time you update your OS, it's possible for iCloud to change its settings on its own, without notifying you.  So after each update, be sure to double-check its settings.

    • addalily's avatar
      addalily
      5 years ago
      @puzzlezaddict I play tested a little bit in my save and none of the files got duplicated again so I'm assuming that it fixed. The loading times were also way faster than before.

      Thank you!
      • puzzlezaddict's avatar
        puzzlezaddict
        Hero+
        5 years ago

        @addalily  I'm not surprised loading is so much faster: the entire save file gets copied into the CurrentGame folder when you load it.  Good to hear it's fixed.

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