Help with Old Save Files

It looks like the reason they aren't showing up is because of the date and time in parentheses.

The ones with ver0, ver2, etc. are the backups. Ver0 is the most recent save, and ver4 is the older for that slot number.

However, I wouldn't put those in your saves folder unless you change the last number (the 1 in this case). If you already have a save with the same slot number, Windows will replace it.

You can choose one, change the slot number to something that isn't already in your Saves folder, and it should work.

Thanks for that info, i'll try that later on. Do i need to copy over the .ver and the .save files as well or just the one file?

The file, you need to copy and change the name of, is one of the first 17 files, i.e. one of those that end in .save, as the file ending in .save is the file the game will use to launch the save.

I’m guessing that the reason they are all named Slot_00000001 is because you’ve made backups on your hard disk or external hard drive and not because the game used to name the files differently (although I could of course be mistaken :) )? Each of these 17 Slot_00000001(various dates).saves has 5 backups that you see further down the list named from .ver.0 to .ver4 as SweetieWright82 mentioned. You don’t need to move these .ver files as well as they are just backups of the .save files. You can of course choose one of these to be the save you want to copy onto your new Sims 4 folder if you prefer that instead.

Anyway, before renaming your old file(s), you need to check what the files in your current save folder are called so that you don’t choose a “name” that is already being used. The game won’t be able read two files with the same name and may also overwrite one with the other. So if you already have a save called e.g. Slot_00000001.save, you can’t rename the file you want to transfer Slot_00000001.save, it has to be something different. I’ve read that some people say, the file name has to have 8 digits, but on this example from EA on how to restore a previous save, they actually go up to 9 in the example they provide (https://help.ea.com/ca/help/the-sims/the-sims-4/how-to-restore-a-previous-saved-game-in-the-sims-4/). You can use digits (1-9) and in my folder I also have saves that end in a lower case letter. However, it’s stated here https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/How-do-I-combine-my-old-save-files-with-my-new-save-files/td-p/8911145 that the letters go from a to f - I’ve no idea how files are named beyond that.

Hope you manage to get your saves transferred so that they work :)

Oh, and you might very possibly need to copy your old tray file as well in order for the sims and builds from your old save(s) to show up. But someone else probably knows the answer to this better than me.

I had to restart my game save. Problem was, only six of the ten saves I had showed up when I transferred them to the brand new saves folder. So, rather that overwrite the older files, since I was beginning with the first save, I added the word NEW and a letter of the alphabet. Cantrell -NEW1a.

I'll give this a try later, i'm assuming it's safe to remove the date and time that's appeared in the file name?

"Brd709;c-18020965" wrote:
I'll give this a try later, i'm assuming it's safe to remove the date and time that's appeared in the file name?

I don't see where it would cause a problem if you removed it. If you don't, it won't show up in game.

So i removed the date and time from the file name and it was available from the load game section! My original sim self from 2015 was in it and it was weird having two saves, one from 2015 with my original sim self and my save from this year with my 2021 sim self. Now i wonder what would happen if those two sim self's met?

I'm glad you got it figured out.

You could always save your 2015 or 2021 to your Library and move them into the other's save, and find out. Maybe they'll be good friends. Maybe they'll be enemies.

I’m hoping one of those saves from 2015 has the kids he had with Nina Caliente. Looking at some of the few screenshots I took back then I cannot remember what I called those kids.