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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 Origin/EA App. As internal storage gets smaller we're forced ...
external drive
file structure
icloud
mac
Bluebellflora's avatar
Bluebellflora
Hero+
9 months ago
@mfnstargrl

It really would have helped if you had stated you had set up the symlink when I asked previously. You may not think it relevant but it really is and not providing requested info means it’s a slower process getting you back in your game.

Please post a screenshot from Finder showing your external drive and clearly showing the name of the drive.

Next, post a screenshot from Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) as follows:
1. In Disk Utility click on View and select Show All Devices.
2. Click on your external drive once in the left sidebar.
3. You will now see info on the external drive in the main part of the window. Post a screenshot showing the entire Disk Utility window.
mfnstargrl's avatar
mfnstargrl
9 months ago

My mistake I misunderstood the question when you first asked.

  • Bluebellflora's avatar
    Bluebellflora
    Hero+
    9 months ago

    @mfnstargrl 

    Thanks. The name of your mounted drive does not match your drive name. Look at the mount point in the Disk Utility screenshot. It should be /Volumes/sims4 but the OS has added a 1 to the end so it is /Volumes/sims4 1. This will be because the drive has not been ejected properly multiple times. To fix this:

    1. Unplug the drive
    2. In Finder click on Go in the menu bar then click on Go to folder in the menu.
    3. In the window that pops up enter /Volumes and hit Enter
    4. There should be a folder with the same name as the external drive. Trash the folder.
    5. Plug the external drive back in
    6. Open Disk Utility and check the mount point again

    The names should now match. If they do go into your Documents folder and trash the symlink you created then redo it.

    • mfnstargrl's avatar
      mfnstargrl
      9 months ago

      @Bluebellflora Thank you, it's working! to make sure I'm doing it correctly, is trashing the EA folder in my documents equivalent to trashing the symlink? Because for some reason the terminal isn't allowing me to create a new symlink.

      • Bluebellflora's avatar
        Bluebellflora
        Hero+
        9 months ago

        @mfnstargrl

        I’m presuming, because you said you had created the symlink, that the Electronic Arts folder in your Documents folder has the little arrow? This is the symlink folder. Trash it.

        I’m also presuming that you have the actual Electronic Arts folder on your external drive?

        If neither of these are true please explain what you have with screenshots showing the file paths in Finder.

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