lost households

bethsinc_xx​  The Tray folder contains your saved households and builds, so if you deleted that folder, the data is gone.  Sims 4 doesn't sync files automatically, so you'd only have the local copies.  And a factory reset of your laptop would just permanently delete everything, not bring your data back.

If OneDrive is running on your computer, whether you ever deliberately use it or not, you could check onedrive.com for your missing Tray files.  Look in both My Files and the Recycle Bin.  Tray files have extensions like .bpi, .blueprint, trayitem, .hhi, or .sgi, and each in-game item has several corresponding files, so make sure to grab everything.

The Slot_ file is a save, not a Tray item.

Thank you for replying. Do you know what the ' slot ' file is in my saves folder as thats the only thing in that folder. There's nothing in my recycle bin. I have quite alot of files with blank starting with ' 0x0000.... ', i don't know what they are. I gather they are important so i havent deleted anything either.  I believe i have all of my mods back but i have lost all of my households. There was a few items in my Tray folder at first, I didnt know what it was but i was told it was rally important so i was told to uninstall my game to then reinstall it.. my Tray folder came back but only with the ' slot ' file inside ( no idea what that is ). What are local copies? Can you still play with them.. i miss playing, i haven't been able to play for a month because of all this. I was thinking about factory resetting, not to bring my data back but to just download everything again and to just start fresh as i dont have a clue what im doing. Onedrive does run but it's over full so i've had to buy 2 external hard drives. I have been told to try to restart all fresh but i dont know if i want to do that.. Any advice?

Also, i know this is irrelevant at this time, but when i used to be able to play, 3 of the worlds would not let me allow them inside. If i went to visit one of the worlds with my sim, the world would just go blank and i'd have to shut my sims down and rejoin

Thank you