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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
Bluebellflora's avatar
Bluebellflora
Hero+
3 years ago
@dancingk8

Again, Origin does not need access to the Documents folder, I'm not sure why you think it does? The Origin settings are fine and not relevant to the symlink process.

If the Sims 4 has Full Disk Access this includes the Documents folder.

The screenshots are too small. Can you please post a legible screenshot showing The Sims 4 has Full Disk Access.
dancingk8's avatar
dancingk8
3 years ago

I understand perfectly. I'm trying to illustrate that for my computer, once I turn on "full disk access" for a particular app, it removes the ability to toggle any further changes on the files & folders tab. I also do not have an option to *only* allow Documents access to The Sims 4 on the files & folders tab (without granting Full Disk Access). As you can see above, if full disk access were hypoethetically turned off for TS4, I would only be able to toggle its access to "Removable Volumes" on the files & folders tab. Therefore, I assumed I needed to turn on Full Disk Access for TS4.

Here is a larger screenshot showing The Sims 4 with full disk access. When I attempt to launch the game, even though The Sims 4 has full disk access, I still receive "the sims 4 is already running" error message.

I've also tried running it with disk access turned on for TS4 and turned off for Origin, and I still get the same result.

  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    3 years ago
    @dancingk8

    Yes, Full Disk Access is the highest level access so all other options are superfluous. I have the same setup on one of my Macs and the symlink is setup with no errors. In Files & Folders Origin and TS4 show Full Disk Access greyed out.

    Now we've ascertained you have Full Disk Access for both Origin and the game the error message must be caused by something else blocking the game from accessing the Documents folder. It is this lack of access that causes this specific error message. You could try setting up a new user account on your Mac, launch the game to make sure it works ok then do the symlink again in that new account. A new user account should be vanilla, free of any corrupted or junky files that may be contributing to the permission issues as well as custom settings, 3rd party apps and processes in your current user account.
  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    3 years ago
    @dancingk8

    It would be helpful to figure out what on your machine is causing this block. It may help others who seem to have created the symlink correctly but experiencing the same issue.

    There has definitely been an uptick recently in people not able to get their game to work after creating the symlink but the instructions are still solid and work. 99% of the time it's people not following the instructions properly and missing vital steps, or thinking they can skip various steps like properly formatting the drive or not properly moving the folder. With full permissions granted it works which is why I'm thinking something local to your machine is the cause.

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