Mods not showing in game

Hi so before i start i play the sims on a external hard drive so i tried to play the sims and my mods arent showing in game even though i made sure to select it in option settings. I exited the game and i put my mods folder on my desk top and i restarted the game thinking it would regenerate a new one and i could just add the contents back in there. But when i restarted to the main menu and exited in my “The Sims 4” folder there was no new mods folder created. So I added my old one back in there and its still not showing up. What can I try or what did i do wrong? i even uninstalled the game and redownloaded it