Hi!
My Mac barely has no space left. Therefore, I need to move my Sims mods onto my external hard drive. I've understood that this also means I need to move the game itself. Can anyone give me instructions as to how I successfully move mods and Sims 4 onto an external hard drive on a MacBook?๐
Thank you so much! I'm working on it right now, but I can't get past step 4 on the instructions. It says: "On the left menu click on Computer then double click on the โ/โ that appears next to a picture of your hard drive. You should see four folders โ Applications, Library, System, Users". I don't see "Computer" anywhere. Is it equivalent to "Anna's MacBook Pro" which you can see in the photo?
Oh, I see. Thank you so much๐
Hi again! Have you been able to have a look at the changes yet?๐
Sorry!
I checked it and I had still had to apply the workaround. Your screenshot threw me because it shows a normal Finder window but the window that pops up in Origin looks like this:
Edit - after a little testing with @puzzlezaddict it turns out that an older version of macOS shows the proper Finder window, not this ugly Origin version. Which macOS are you running? In the screenshot you posted it shows your external drive as the drive with the yellow icon so you should be able to choose that drive and not worry about the workaround instructions.
Thank you so much for helping me out. I'll try again later today. I'm currently using macOS Mojave 10.14.6. I'm not able to update my MacBook until I move the Sims game๐
I'm not familiar with the term "workaround", so please explain to me what it means๐
I also didn't quite understand if I should skip all the remaining steps of the instructions and simply change the folder to my external hard drive (the yellow icon)? I was confused about step 5 "Directory" as well.
Sorry for asking a lot of questions. I really appreciate your help ๐
Thank you for explaining! I managed to successfully move the Electronic Arts folder to my hard drive, but I'm now facing a new problem. When creating the symlink for the Electronic Arts folder, it doesn't say "alias" in my local documents folder as described in the tutorial.
Sorry, it got changed to "alias" now, so I think it will be working.
I managed to do all the steps, but I'm getting a message when I try to start the game. I get this message with a different mod every time I try to open the Sims game. Do you know what I can do about this without having to delete all of my mods?
I followed yours๐ Yes, I'm aware, but I don't know how to reformat the hard drive?
Again, thank you for taking the time to respond to all of my newbie questions
Thank you! I have a lot of important files on my hard drive, and it seems risky to format the drive. I will not take the risk of losing all of my files. Does this mean I won't be able to launch the game at all?
Okay thank you
Hi again! I have now found a solution as to how I can install the game and the mods on my hard drive after all. I have another hard drive which I can format if necessary. My question is now how I can safely move the game and the mods to the other hard drive. Btw, I would usually try to do it all on my own, but I'm scared I will lose data or my files if I make any mistakes. Therefore, I ask you first๐
To avoid any corruption of the install I would uninstall the game then change the game library location in Origin to the new drive, then re-download the game again.
For your user data (Sims 4 folder) you need to reverse the current symlink then redo it to the new drive.
Thereโs always a risk to lose files when moving stuff around and creating symlinks but so long as you have backups it doesnโt matter ๐
I see! Thank you! I need to reverse the symlink even though I never created one, as you recommended me not to?
Also, I don't know if this matters, but as of now I don't have any data/active games in the Sims 4. The mods are the only thing I'm worried about losing in the moving process ๐
I have not created a symlink for the Sims game itself, as this update didn't require it (Based on what you wrote to me here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/Moving-mods-and-Sims-4-to-external-hard-drive-MAC/m-p/11351076#M49421).
I have indeed created a symlink for the Electronic Arts folder as showed in the instructions ๐
@annakristineb97 wrote:
I have not created a symlink for the Sims game itself, as this update didn't require it (Based on what you wrote to me here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-Mac/Moving-mods-and-Sims-4-to-external-hard-drive-MAC/m-p/11351076#M49421).
There has never been a need for creating a symlink for storing the game externally. Please do not confuse the Origin workaround with creating a symlink.
@annakristineb97 wrote:I have indeed created a symlink for the Electronic Arts folder as showed in the instructions ๐
Exactly, so you now need to reverse that symlink if you are going to use a different drive and then create a new symlink to the new external drive. If you don't do this your Mac will forever point towards your current drive that you don't want to reformat when the game loads your user data. This wiki page may help you better understand what a symlink is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link
