Trying to Restore Mom's Old Saves

Hello,

My mom has been playing The Sims 4 for years and recently told me she somehow lost access to all of her saves after an update sometime last year (she doesn't remember exactly when). She says she opened the game after the update and could only select "New Game." She plays on a Mac computer and has no mods.

I found a backup of her old Sims 4 folder from last year, but when I put the files from the "saves" folder into her current "saves" folder, the game doesn't recognize them at all. I've tried putting them in one by one, but none of them will open (it just shows "New Game" or just the default sims that come with the game). I also tried to "repair" the game.

The saves in her backup folder almost all look like this:

Slot_00000008.save 2.ver2

Slot_00000008.save 3.ver2

Slot_00000008.save 4.ver3

Etc. etc., going all the way up to:

Slot_00000008.save 1091.ver1

Slot_00000008.save 1564.ver1

Slot_00000008.save 1565.ver1

There are over 300 like this in the save folder.

I saw a site that said to delete the "ver" part of the file name (after ".save") but they almost all start with "Slot_00000008", so I'd have almost nothing left. She had many different families.

Does anyone have any insight into how I can manipulate these files to bring her old sims back? It would make her so happy.

Thanks!