Tutorial
Tutorial

Multiple User folders

September 18, 2025 /

Introduction

Many people play with mods/CC, and Maxis is introducing more and more features in the game. There are many things to consider if you disable packs, play events, and use mods/CC. The easiest way to handle them is to maintain different user folders and activate the relevant folder by renaming it.

This method is not new, but it is becoming increasingly relevant, so I would like to describe it in more detail below.

Steps

To switch between the individual folders, you just need to rename them. The game always selects the folder Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4* for the English version (other languages may differ).

Right-Click on the current user folder and choose rename.

Choose a name which describes what this folder contains so you know which one is which.

Now Right-Click on the folder that you want to make active and rename it to The Sims 4 as described above

Start the game. The game will now load this folder.

Ideas for Folders

I want to explain the idea using my own as an example.

As you can see I have many Sims 4 folders in Documents > Electronic Arts.

  • Die Sims 4: This folder is automatically active when I switch the game to German. I often use this to get German screenshots in the game.
  • The Sims 4: This folder is automatically active when I play in English. This is my main game folder.

Folders that I can activate depending on the purpose.

  • The Sims 4_Bugs: I use this folder to test reported bugs. I have lots of save files with different features active (usually one per pack) so that I can test things quickly. I don’t have any mods in this folder so that my tests aren’t influenced by them.
  • The Sims 4_Events: This folder contains my event save file. I only use this game to unlock event items. To ensure there are no conflicts, there are no mods here and I play with a household consisting of one Sim.
  • The Sims 4_Mods: This folder contains some mods that I enjoy playing with myself. These are my own modded save files.
  • The Sims 4_Saves: I use this folder to test save files. I don’t have any mods in this folder so that my tests are not influenced by them.

Other Ideas for folders

  • Save games for which you have deactivated certain packs. UserSettings(.ini) contain the information which packs have been disabled. If you run different user folders you also have different UserSetting(.ini) files and it’s easier to keep track which saves use which packs. This way you don’t load the wrong save game with the wrong packs loaded. If you have different combinations of packs, it’s best to have one user folder per combination.
  • Save games for building or creating Sims.

Things to consider

Although the method should help you preventing issues there are a few things you need to consider, especially if you set up a lot of user folders.

  • Make sure to update the mods/cc in ALL your user folders if you keep folders with different combinations of mods/cc
  • A patch deactivates mods/cc. This is true for every folder. So if you switch folders for the first time after a patch mods will get turned off for that other folder too.
  • Disable oneDrive synchronizing for Sims 4. This often leads to issues because the game likes to switch between cloud and local folder after patching/repairing the game.
  • Especially in situations where mods have not yet been updated, it is useful to have folders/save files without mods. This allows you to continue playing and possibly try out new packs without having to worry that the game will corrupt your other save files because you accidentally load them with incompatible mods or without mods.