moving the game to a external hd

communiscats​  Again, if you've put the entire Documents directory on the external drive, you're asking for trouble.  I'm not saying you've broken your computer or anything, only that there are lots of ways this could go wrong, in particular if the drive is ever disconnected, even accidentally.  It's much safer to use a symbolic link because that leaves Documents on an internal drive.

YouTube guides often miss this critical point.  And it is perfectly safe to move Documents to a secondary internal drive, just not to an external one.  This does matter, a lot, due to how the operating system works.  Telling someone it doesn't is setting them up for problems that they don't even see coming.

The location where you install the game is independent, and this can be on an external drive without any risk beyond the EA App possibly not recognizing the install at some point.

Hi there. Did you get help on moving your Sims 4 game/Install?

I have been Reading several, I mean several articles and getting my YouTube Degree, Lol, where people have moved their Sims game to External HD. I have my Sims 4 game on my new SSD. I didn't want to Input any Commands that I wasn't comfortable with. Someone tried to tell me what Commands to input & and I just didn't want to mess up my New NVME & SSD. The EA App is on My C Drive, AKA Desktop only. My game files are on my New Drive and My MODs folder is on my New Drive as well. Sims likes to initially put everything on your Desktop & Documents (Mods Folder). For this, I changed the file location to my new drive. I have the Sims 4 short cut on my desktop, but It Runs from my new drive. And to think, I figured this all out on my own. Internal/ External desn't matter. It's storage. I don't have to use Command or Link anything. Well, hopefully they got it figured out. Happy Simming!!!

CelestrialQueen​  A few things:

• You don't need the EA App on both drives
• The location where you install the game has nothing to do with the location of your user files
• You can choose a manual install location for Sims 4 without changing the default location for game installs in the EA App
• The Documents directory should NEVER be moved to an external drive, as at least this user has.  If your secondary drive is internal, you're fine, but it's unhelpful and potentially dangerous to suggest another user do this when they're working with an external drive or when you're not sure

This was me earlier this week. My Mods folder was on my New NVME ( Drive in the Libraries Section. Game is installed on New SSD per EA App, but my mods folder kept going to my my new OS NVME-C Drive. Anyways, I Right clicked on the Documents under the Libraries, Properties, click on Location, Move, Browse-  Click on my New SSD- S Drive, and it Runs on my New S Drive, not from OS NVME - C Drive. I couldn't get around installation on C- Drive without the EA App wanting me to RE-INSTALL everything. So I Installed on my New S- Drive & MODS folder is being sent or mirrored to New S-Drive without any issues. No Command Links or Terminals. And it only Runs off of New S-Drive, not C-Drive. I check it through Task Manager under processes. Just make sure EA App is on Both Drives or you'll have to re-download Everything Like I did, several times. And EA App setting, download, Application is set to New S-Drive. Oh and did have to un install EA App and set it to the New S- Drive. Hope this helps. 

Yeah, coding is definitely out of my league. I got confused if I should substitute my name on the %UserProfile% command or not, because other people have told me otherwise. On my second command there is a letter missing because I thought I had put the wrong user profile since my pc was showing my name without the last letter. 

The folder called "Eletronic Arts" was the one I created on the external drive, but i renamed it already in order to not get even more confused. Here's the screenshot you asked with the full path and also a screenshot of my External Drive with the designated folders, and yes I already have the game on the External Drive.

communiscats​  Your commands are incorrect in a few ways.  The point of including %UserProfile% in the command (and with the second % at the end) is to tell Windows "apply this to the current user profile."  You can't insert your actual name here; Windows won't know what you're trying to tell it.

You also cannot create a symbolic link called "The Sims 4" that points to an Electronic Arts folder, as your command is trying to do.  The game won't be able to figure this out.

Your second command also has a shorter username, like maybe you left out the last letter.

And you've put the path "E:\The Sims 4" in your command, but that only applies if your external drive has the letter E and you have a "The Sims 4" folder directly on it.

Please list the full path to the folder on your external drive that you want to link to (the Sims 4 or Electronic Arts folder; either is fine, but I need to know which you'll be using).  Right-click the folder and select Properties > General, then list the Location.  Please also open the game and list the location of the user folder it's reading, as described here:

https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2018/07/how-to-find-your-user-folder/

I will write out the command for you to use.

Hi! 

I have already tried to create a symbolic link before and I'm also aware that there are always going to have 2 folders and they have to remain separated.  But I'm still having problems creating the symbolic link, here's a screenshot of the error I got. 

The first error says: 'That the system couldn't find the specified path.'

The second says: '/J' isn't recognized as an internal command, or external, an operable program or a batch file.'

At this point I really don't know what I can do anymore because I have tried basically everything already and nothing worked. If you have anymore tips or things I can try.

communiscats​  There are always going to be two Sims 4 folders: one that contains the game's program files and one that contains user data.  You can install the program files wherever you want, but for the user folder, the game will always look for it in Documents > Electronic Arts.  If you want that on the external drive too, you'll need to create a symbolic link.  Here's how:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2020/02/moving-windows-documents-folder-to-external-drive-via-symbolic-link.html

Please do NOT combine the program files and the user folder.  If you need to, create a new folder for one or both so they remain separate.  Other than that, you can organize things however you want.

If you get an error when creating the symlink, please post a screenshot of the Command Prompt window showing the command you used and the error it returned.