All my files are gone

@hellblau4  If you're sure your saves aren't in OneDrive (even in its recycle bin) or anywhere on your computer, then unfortunately the files are gone for good.  Just to make sure, please search your computer if you haven't already: open a File Explorer window, click This PC in the left panel, and enter Slot_ in the search field in the upper-right corner.  This would turn up any saves on yoru computer, including ones in some random location where you would never think to look.  If you find saves, you might find your other data in the same location.

Other than that, I'm sorry to say there's nothing else you can do.  I know it doesn't help in the moment, but this is why it's a good idea to make regular backups of everything critical.  You never know when you'll have a system issue and lose data, but if that data is backed up somewhere else (an external drive, cloud storage, really anywhere that isn't on your computer itself), you'll never lose more than a few hours' progress.

As for why this happened, I'd suspect OneDrive, specifically a failed sync.  But that's difficult to prove, and it's certainly not the only possibility.  If you want me to look over a dxdiag for any obvious issues, feel free to attach one to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

But it's entirely possible there won't be any evidence of the kind of issues that can cause data loss, and that you'll never know what happened for sure.

@puzzlezaddict Hi, thank you for your answer, you're very kind.

I specifically configured OneDrive not to sync my documents folder because it had done weird stuff like this before, so it shouldn't be a problem, but I still checked just in case, with no luck. It's really strange because 1. the only thing that was left was 4 .package files on my mods folder, when I had thousands, and 2. I had another Sims folder from when I played the game in Spanish that had a few saves on it but not any mods or anything and I haven't touched in years, and that one was ALSO gone, but this time completely, the whole "Los Sims 4" folder has disappeared without a trace. It's so weird!

Anyways, you're completely right, it's definitely wise to backup files often. Luckily I had my saves backed up from 5 days ago, and most of my mods, so it's alright, I'm just pretty bummed about my screenshots folder mostly, and all the progress from this week.

It's okay though, it's not the end of the world, no need to bother you any more. Thank you again for your help and have a nice day! 🙂

@hellblau4  It's even more odd that your "Los Sims 4" folder would disappear too, especially given that the game wouldn't even be reading that folder while you were playing in English.  I guess an overly eager cleaner app could have deleted almost everything, but even the most aggressive antivirus shouldn't have gone that far.  It's also possible that you have some hard drive corruption, but usually that would mean corrupt files rather than disappearing ones, and usually it wouldn't just be the contents of Documents that disappeared.

I'm glad you at least have relatively recent saves to fall back on.  And you're definitely not bothering me; I just wish I could give you a better answer.

@puzzlezaddict Well, I was just going to go on with my life and forget about it, but things get even weirder! Apparently, stuff is still disappearing from the Sims 4 folder. Yesterday, when I opened this topic, I had all my folders and stuff inside the Sims 4 folder (picture attached), but they were all empty. Now, I opened it again just to check, and even the folders are gone! Only thing left is the Mods folder, with even less files in it now (second picture). I checked my OneDrive documents folder again but still no luck.

I would think that maybe I have a virus or something that's deleting my files but I haven't noticed anything missing anywhere else, just my Sims 4 stuff. Do you think I should reinstall the game or something like that?

@hellblau4  A virus is a possibility for sure.  If you want to do a scan, download Malwarebytes (the free version is fine) from here:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download

Open it, click Scan > Custom Scan > Configure Scan, check all the boxes both for scans and for all your drives (C and any other letter showing), and let it do its job. This will probably take at least an hour, so you may want to set it to run while you're doing something else. Let me know what it finds.

Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to a post:

https://help.ea.com/en/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

@puzzlezaddict Okay, I did the scan you said and it found some infected files, some of which I downloaded months ago from... mostly reliable sources, and others I just don't know what they are. I'll attach the report it gave me if you want to take a look. I'll also attach the dxdiag document.

@puzzlezaddict Alright! I did everything you told me. The antivirus worked and got rid of everything, I've freed up around 20 GB on my C: drive, I ran Windows Powershell and it told me that it found some damaged files and that they were repaired correctly. I'll attach a picture of the result, though everything is in Spanish since that's the system language, just in case you want to take a look. I also installed some recent Windows Updates.

Honestly, I've already noticed the difference, since the first antivirus scan I did took around 13 hours, and the second one took just 1 hour lmao.

Also, thank you for taking the time to help me out so much, I really appreciate it a lot. I came here because of some missing Sims files and you've fixed my entire thing. I'll try to take better care of this old PC x)

@hellblau4  That sounds great, and I hope everything's fixed for good.  I'd still be on the lookout for any other issues and keep backups, just in case, but hopefully you won't need them.  And yeah, in the future, it might be a good idea to be a little more careful with what you download as well as drive space.

Enjoy your game.