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Bluebellflora's avatar
Bluebellflora
Hero+
3 years ago

🛠️ Creating a symlink in macOS to store the Sims 4 folder on an external drive

➡️ This is not to be confused with installing the actual Sims 4 game on an external drive. The game installation location is determined in EA App and there is no need to use a symlink for this. As ...
external drive
file structure
icloud
mac
h3l3n44nn's avatar
h3l3n44nn
3 years ago

I am really struggling and driving myself absolutely crazy. Im in hospital so can't play the sims on my PC like I normally do so using my MacBook Pro. I need to move the EA file from documents to my external. I have done the symlink thing and its not working I've tried for the past 2 days and just not working. Any advice or 1:1 support. Thanks

Bluebellflora's avatar
Bluebellflora
Hero+
3 years ago
@h3l3n44nn

It works if the Terminal commands are accurately entered and the external drive and game have all necessary permissions, these are basic UNIX commands, nothing specific to any version of macOS or the game. Without posting any of your commands and Terminal output it's impossible to help you. Please copy/paste what you have entered in Terminal and the resulting output, NOT a screenshot. Also post a screenshot from Disk Utility showing your external drive.
  • ashface's avatar
    ashface
    3 years ago
    @Bluebellflora I also don't know why there's a folder named External 1unfortunately ):
  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    3 years ago

    @ashface 

    Bizarre. Do another terminal search, this time for the Mods folder:

    Open Terminal and copy and paste the following command then hit Enter/Return:

    find / -type d -name "*Mods*" 2>/dev/null

    Copy and paste the results in a post here.

    That you have no idea what the EXTERNAL 1 drive is indicates that something is not quite right with the file system on your Mac, maybe there is some kind of corruption which is resulting in these issues?

  • ashface's avatar
    ashface
    3 years ago
    @Bluebellflora /System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Desktop/MovieMods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Downloads/Lumpinou_RPO_Collection_AllMods_April2
    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Downloads/Sims3 Mods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Downloads/Mods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/PhoneMods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/MovieMods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/PhoneMods
    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/MovieMods
    /Users/ash/Desktop/MovieMods
    /Users/ash/Downloads/Lumpinou_RPO_Collection_AllMods_April2
    /Users/ash/Downloads/Sims3 Mods
    /Users/ash/Downloads/Mods
    /Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods
    /Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/PhoneMods
    /Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/MovieMods
    /Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods
    /Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods
    /Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/PhoneMods
    /Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/MovieMods


    I have way more mods than this though, I'm unsure why these are the only ones popping up.
  • ashface's avatar
    ashface
    3 years ago

    @Bluebellflora  This is what my mods folder looks like- I guess the others are CC, but just for reference. 

    Also- thank you so much for helping me it is extremely appreciated.

  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    3 years ago

    @ashface 

    Thanks. This isn't listing all your Mods, it is listing all folders with Mods in the folder name which was all I needed.

    Going through your list in order:

    This folder is on your desktop, the game will not load any contents from this folder:

    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Desktop/MovieMods

    These folders are in your Downloads folder and of course will not load:

    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Downloads/Lumpinou_RPO_Collection_AllMods_April2
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Downloads/Sims3 Mods
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/ash/Downloads/Mods

    These folders are in the EXTERNAL 1 partition/drive, only you can figure out this conundrum:

    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/PhoneMods
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/MovieMods
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL 1/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Mods

    The game will be reading this Mods folder:

    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods

    These are two folders within the above Mods folder:

    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/PhoneMods
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/Mods/MovieMods

    Ignore the rest, they are the folders listed above.

    Can you post the full contents of your Mods folder by entering this command into Terminal, hitting Enter then copying/pasting the results here:

    ls /Volumes/EXTERNAL/Electronic\ Arts/The\ Sims\ 4/Mods
  • ashface's avatar
    ashface
    3 years ago
    @Bluebellflora Accessories NisasWickedPerversions
    Accessories Male OliveGardenCC
    Bags PassionateRomance
    BasementalDrugs PhoneMods
    Bottoms PinkModeUI
    Bottoms Male PinkPlumbob
    Child Male Hair PrivatePractice
    ChildSkin RedLobsterCC
    ChildbirthMod Relationship & Pregnancy Mod
    Dresses RemoveSimsFromConvos
    ExtremeViolence Resource.cfg
    FaceMasks Sets
    Hair ShakeShackCC
    Hair Male Shoes
    HenryCavillSkin SimNationalBank
    InsimniaEats Skins
    InsimniaEatsIngredients Sleep&Lingerie
    Jackets Swim
    KariSkin TomHollandSkin
    Kitchen&KocktailsLounge Tops
    Lashes Tops Male
    LifeTragedies UICheats
    MakeUp WWAnimations
    Mason&TaylorSkin WickedWhimsMod
    MovieMods WrenchReplacement

    The mod folder on my desktop was just for storage for the other versions of it. I don't know why there's a dual mods folder for the external popping up, that's really weird. Do you think that the External 1 could've been created when I tried to edit the Origin Installations & Saves?
  • ashface's avatar
    ashface
    3 years ago

    @BluebellfloraThis is what is showing in my installations & saves section in Origin when I clicked to choose the folder. So the External 1 is the external drive itself when it's plugged in- but I'm thoroughly confused lol

  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    3 years ago
    @ashface

    Right, so EXTERNAL 1 is the name of your external drive, not EXTERNAL.

    At this point I think it would be better to reformat the external drive, rename it something else, for example SIMSDRIVE, and start the symlink process all over again. Make sure you reverse the symlink before doing so.

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