Your tray file is in documents/the sims 4, go in there and take a peek to see if it's empty.
I still have everything except my saves, so tray is still full
So the Save file is empty? If so I guess you're starting over. Did you have problems and delete your documents folder in the past?
I never deleted anything, from what I remember or know.
Altough my laptop seems full of all the old files - are they safe to delete since I can not restore them for saves?
The files to go into in documents to delete items would be Cashe, these are items you have seen in the game and of no use. Go inside of Cashe click first pic, go to bottom of file and shift click last on. All files should be highlighted then and then delete. You should be able to delete items in the tray file the same way and save file if you are starting over.
If you have items saved to your library in the game you might not want to delete tray files. You can go into the library in the game also to delete items you no longer wish to keep. Last exception reports can also be deleted.
Just incase you can try deleting the localthumbcashe that looks like a note pad item near the bottom of all the files and try the game again first to see if saves show up.
