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Full Fix for The Sims 3 Crashing When Opening Downloads (Mac Version)
If The Sims 3 crashes when you open Downloads, or if afterward it says “The Sims 3 is only available for Windows,” follow these steps:
Close both The Sims 3 and the EA App completely.
Go to Documents → Electronic Arts and move the entire The Sims 3 folder to your Desktop. (This creates a backup.)
Start the game again. It will generate a clean, fresh Sims 3 folder.
Try opening Downloads again. If it now works, your old folder had corrupted files.
Copy back your Saves and Mods folders one at a time to find which caused the issue.
If you see the “only available for Windows” message after doing this, it’s a glitch where the EA App temporarily loses track of your Mac installation.
To fix that:
Quit both The Sims 3 Launcher and EA App again.
Reopen the EA App — it should automatically find your game.
If not, click the three dots (⋯) next to The Sims 3 in the EA App and select Locate Game, then point it to your installation folder (usually /Applications/The Sims 3.app).
Once it reconnects, launch the game again.
This method avoids reinstalling and usually clears both the crash and the launcher detection problem.
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