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sofuuuh's avatar
sofuuuh
2 years ago
Solved

Transferring data from Windows EA App to External Drive

Hello.  I recently bought an SSD external drive to save my Sims files onto; reading other topics; I have an idea on how to save my game into my external drive (uninstall and reinstall in my chosen d...
pc
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    2 years ago

    @sofuuuh  For your mods, you'd download them as normal, then move them straight to the Mods folder on your SSD.  If the files copy instead of moving, you'd be able to delete the original downloads without affecting the copies on the SSD.

    What I would suggest is redirecting the entire Sims 4 user folder to your SSD, for example D:\Game Content\The Sims 4, with all the usual files inside that.  It's simpler than creating a symbolic link for each of the subfolders and also makes troubleshooting a little bit simpler.  You then wouldn't have a "The Sims 4" folder within Documents\Electronic Arts; you'd instead have the symlink itself there.

    When I said install folder, I meant the folder into which the EA App installs Sims 4.  This needs to be a separate folder from the one that holds your Sims 4 user folder.  So as an example, on your SSD, you might have a Game Content folder that holds user data (saves, mods, etc.), plus a Games folder that holds the game's program files.

    I would suggest just starting the process and seeing the results.  It's a lot easier when you can see folders right in front of you rather than trying to visualize everything in advance.  If you do want to visualize, the symlink guide has some helpful screenshots.

sofuuuh's avatar
sofuuuh
2 years ago

@puzzlezaddict when you mention moving over newly updated or downloaded mods to my SSD, I'll download them as normal, put them through Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims\Mods, and then move them over to my SSD file location which would be for example maybe: D:\Game Content\Mods, Tray, Saves etc- which will all be their separate files like in Windows Documents, is that right? Does that mean my Sims 4 folder on Windows can be empty? Meaning I can delete the files that I downloaded or saved on Windows to only have them in my SSD to save space, and nothing can happen to my game or mods? And what would you mean by install folder? Would be in D:\Games\The Sims 4? And just confirm the only files I need to create is Game for it to be a final location for my actual game on the SSD, same with my mods, saves etc.

Thank you so much for this, you have made it a lot simpler. 

puzzlezaddict's avatar
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
2 years ago

@sofuuuh  For your mods, you'd download them as normal, then move them straight to the Mods folder on your SSD.  If the files copy instead of moving, you'd be able to delete the original downloads without affecting the copies on the SSD.

What I would suggest is redirecting the entire Sims 4 user folder to your SSD, for example D:\Game Content\The Sims 4, with all the usual files inside that.  It's simpler than creating a symbolic link for each of the subfolders and also makes troubleshooting a little bit simpler.  You then wouldn't have a "The Sims 4" folder within Documents\Electronic Arts; you'd instead have the symlink itself there.

When I said install folder, I meant the folder into which the EA App installs Sims 4.  This needs to be a separate folder from the one that holds your Sims 4 user folder.  So as an example, on your SSD, you might have a Game Content folder that holds user data (saves, mods, etc.), plus a Games folder that holds the game's program files.

I would suggest just starting the process and seeing the results.  It's a lot easier when you can see folders right in front of you rather than trying to visualize everything in advance.  If you do want to visualize, the symlink guide has some helpful screenshots.

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