obsimlescent Before doing anything else, please make sure Online Social Features is enabled, in Options > Game Options > Other. If the box isn't already checked, enable it and restart the game.
As for renaming the Sims 4 folder, doing so has no effect on your PC's storage. You're not duplicating it; you're giving it a different name so the game won't read it. Starting the game to create a new folder will add a bit of data, but the new folder would be very small unless you copied other data to it.
If you really have such little free storage that generating such a small folder would be a problem, then your lack of storage is already a problem, and it would be best to address that before you start losing data, or your computer stops working properly.