How do I transfer The Sims 4 game saves to another computer?

Despite having been around for a lengthy 7 years, The Sims 4 shows little slowdown in popularity. Indeed, during the last year its popularity surged again.

Amongst the fans is my youngest daughter, who plays it pretty much daily. However, being the in-house IT Help Desk means that I’ve been called many times to help out with it, particularly when it comes to installing third party mods. And, recently, she’s moved from Windows to Mac, which meant moving the game too.

Thankfully, we bought the game on Origin (in fact I got it when it was available for free), which means that we have the game on both platforms – so, downloading the game onto the Mac was the easy part. The trickier part – how do you get your saved games and mods from one computer to another? Whether you transfer Sims 4 saves to another computer on the same platform (e.g. Windows to Windows) or across them (e.g. Windows to Mac), thankfully it’s relatively easy.

Wait, what about consoles?

Whilst The Sims 4 is available on both PlayStation and Xbox, the files aren’t accessible so you’re not able to transfer data elsewhere. This process only works to transfer Sims 4 saves to another computer.

What you’ll need

Here’s a list of the things that you’ll need to transfer everything over…

1. A method of transferring data – this could be a USB memory stick or, for example, Dropbox ( or any other cloud storage platform)

And that’s it. I did say it was simple.

Transferring the data

The key to transferring data is knowing where it’s stored. As it turns out, whether on Mac or PC, the format is the same so the files are totally interchangeable. Not only that but the folder location is the same too!

On the original computer

1. Open Windows Explorer or Finder and head to Documents -> Electronic Arts -> The Sims 4
2. Copy the following folders to your transfer method (the aforementioned Dropbox, memory stick, etc.)…
   1. Mods – this is where ‘Custom Content’ is stored. If you don’t use this, you don’t need to copy this
   2. saves – this is where your saved Sims 4 games have been placed
   3. Screenshots – if you’ve saved in-game screenshots, then they’ll be put in this folder

On the new computer

1. Copy the previously saved files into the folder Documents -> Electronic Arts -> The Sims 4
2. If it asks you if you want to overwrite the existing files then say ‘Yes’

Now start Sims 4 on the new computer and check the content is there.

Checking your Custom Content

If the Custom Content appears to be missing then it may have been switched off. Here’s how you turn it back on:

1. Whilst running Sims 4, go into Settings
2. Now select Game Options -> Other
3. Ensure the option named “Enable Custom Content and Mods” is ticked
4. If you had to change anything, now hit the “Apply Changes” button

If that didn’t work then you may need to remove a file from your computer.

1. Head into Documents -> Electronic Arts -> The Sims 4 -> Mods
2. Look for a file named Resource.cfg and delete it
3. Restart The Sims 4 and perform the above check again to ensure that Custom Content is switched on

Hopefully, it should now work.

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