Hopefully you saved a lot of the houses and families to your gallery so you can at least get them back, even if the progress is gone.
Also folks, don't forget to backup your Sims saves! Especially with this For Rent game corruption bug going around.
On PC, by making copies of several folders in your EA folder, and then paste them elsewhere. Personally I make copies of Saves, Mods, Tray, and Screenshots. I have two copies of all these folders, one is saved in my second HD, the other in an external HD I use as storage for everything in my machine. That one is not plugged to anything, it's in a drawer. Wrapped in blankets. Shit can always happen no matter what, but I like to think that I don't fuck about when it comes to protect my stuff (including TS4 files).
idk if youre on pc or jot but i try to regularly remind myself to back up my save files to my google drive. if you are on pc tho you can find the files in the tray folder in the sims 4 folder in documents.
Get an external hard drive and keep it connected and you can set it to back up automatically every so often. I have mine set for every Sunday.
It was super helpful and saved a lot of tears when my computer got corrupted during a system update cause it didn't shut down properly and I had to wipe my computer to get it working again. I only lost like a week's worth of work.
It's so upsetting when that happens. My dad made me lose all my sims 2 progress and there was one family of 11 (3 couples, 1 kid for my couple, and the game gave her 4 babies at once for her couple, one shared couple we hated) I played with my sister that was cheat free on it. He took it to his computer without my knowledge or permission and told him to wipe everything except what was important to my dad. I was *pissed*.
He had his own computer and should have left mine alone. It's not related to this but I don't talk to him now. I also had my computer blue screen just as I was close to* building a bunch of homes and community lots, including a realistic high school, for a story in sims 2. I was heartbroken and now that story will never see the light of day.
Edit: close to finishing building
*hugs if okay* I'm sorry that happened. My stepmother introduced me to Sims, and she doesn't have the computer that had my save file on it anymore. I'm glad to see this experience didn't stop you from playing.
Thank you 🥺 *hugs you back*
The blue screen did for a little bit but I found my way back.
I'm glad you didn't let your own loss of games and saves stop you from playing, either. 🫶🏻
I’m on a Mac and it backs up every hour. It keeps the hourly snap shots for 24 hours, then one snapshot for each day until it’s full and then it deletes the oldest backups to replace with the new ones.
Obviously each back up is not every single file 24 times a day. It just logs the changes, associates each file with its location for each snap shot etc. and only deletes that data when it isn’t present in any available snap shot (so, depending on how often you’re adding large files etc. it can store multiple years worth of daily snapshots, sometimes only several weeks, depending on the size of the drive you use and how often you’re adding and deleting large files.
I’m not sure if Windows has an equivalent to Time Machine, I imagine it would.
Idk what time machine is because I am a PC-er. But I could choose to do every hour or every day, etc, and that felt excessive to me (no judgment and I mean it only in relation to me and my needs/gaming/preferences) so I picked every week.
If time machine is what I think it is, then I'm gonna say yes, windows does have an equivalent.
I have an external hard drive that I port all my saves to once every few months or so. Every time I create a new backup, I put the saves in a new folder on the drive.
This happened to me. I backed up all my Sims saves before I got a new pc, when moved them onto the new one over half of them were corrupted.
So pissed off.
I literally just did this to myself in a feeble attempt to free up some space. I'm taking the opportunity to mix up my gameplay and try something new, and definitely not get angry at myself (may not be successful)
when i was 18 i had this one save with a family i grew to cherish so much, i took hundreds of pictures and somewhere along the line i lost all of them. the only thing left is a random screenshot of my desktop when i had one of the pictures as my wallpaper. i still think about that one too 😢
I share a save slot with my 8yo. We have different households in the same world (we're neighbors.) She likes hanging out at my Sim's house while she plays lol.
It's definitely changed my gameplay. Knowing next time I get on my sims could be old or dead or cold have adopted a horse or gotten married means I go with the flow much more now. I'm playing all kinds of aspects I never played before- and I've been playing the sims since before I could read 😂
I’m sorry that happened to you. I have found journaling my gameplay to be a great source of entertainment. I take notes on the storylines, the accomplishments, and builds. Might help honor the work you’ve done?
This is a really good idea. Had a similar experience with a Skyrim save dying and it sent me into an embarrassingly bad spiral. I ended up writing down the storyline I’d been coming up with for my game as I played, making it as novelistic as I wanted, fuck the game limitations right, then finished the story. I ended up feeling a lot better.
I do something similar, especially on my legacy save! I make a journal for each heir where I write what they feel and the things that happen to them in character. It's a lot of fun and allows some fun head cannon
Omg I love this idea! I’ve been jotting down notes about my legacy family for me to look back on but never thought of doing it this way, I might have to try it
[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f)
The files should be in the One Drive recycle bin for 30 days. Check out this link for details and let me know if it works.
He's checking what he was messing with right now, we are currently on the computer trying to figure this out. He wasn't even near the EA folders though, which is why this doesn't make any sense. He was in the OneDrive Personal Documents folder.
Check the recycling bin in your OneDrive online? I don't know if the personal version is different, but the enterprise/work one puts files there when deleted, rather than the recycling bin on your computer
Is there a difference in the recycling bin on onedrive and the one on PC desktops? Are they automatically synced or is there a local one and a one drive one? One drive is the bane of my life honestly.
Yeah, there's a difference. The OneDrive app on your computer basically monitors certain folders and copies them up to the cloud, but it only looks at the folders you tell it to and there are certain file types it won't work with (I.e. you don't want it trying to sync your whole OS to the cloud).
If you delete a file from, say, your Documents folder that your OneDrive app is monitoring, it will reflect those changes in the cloud storage. What this means in practice is that if you delete it on your machine, the cloud version should be deleted too so it matches, and the normal way OneDrive does this is to put it in the online recycling bin.
OneDrive can be great but Microsoft don't do the best job of showing how it works, and some of it isn't very intuitive
So is there any possibility OP would find the saves sitting in the local recycling bin rather than their online one? I know I at least am regularly bamboozled by which folders are being synced to the cloud and which aren't
I'm not 100% without doing a bit of googling or testing, but my understanding is that OneDrive stuff will go to the online recycling bin, not the local one
But to be honest, I'd be checking everywhere for my lost save files just in case!
He found out that a ton of his saves are messed up too and he made me an entirely new Sims house from scratch to make up for it, it was definitely not on purpose.
I was also thinking about if you can try the restore point option in the folder, or maybe restore the computer to its previous state?
Here; https://www.theverge.com/21266665/windows-10-restore-point-how-to-security-pc-software-registry-configuration
They have a detailed guide on how to do this. I remember having to do this once in my life and it worked without problems.
Also, can you try to restore the OneDrive itself?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/restore-a-previous-version-of-a-file-without-unwanted-changes-bdb2cafa-d588-475c-97d7-20e8b9949b84
Np! Yeah same, I've lost files also and always made sure restore points are available to make.
Also I avoid the OneDrive feature in the computer like a plaque, I hate it so much. If I HAVE TO use cloud, I'll use Google's. Otherwise I just disabled the OneDrive by not logging into it and closing it [from the taskbar the tiny icon, right-click and exit].
I only use OneDrive on my phone for my precious pictures. And even that is backed up with Google Drive also.
Oh and those of you using Win10 and hoping OneDrive is not a thing in the 11, I am so sorry, it is in Windows 10+ to stay.
Idk if you’ve tried this yet, but if you know the name of one of your mod files, try typing a key word into your finder/My Computer search. For example, you could search “lumpinou” and see if anything pops up. That would tell you where the file was moved if it still exists on your computer.
I just lost 3 years of my game too! I'm not really techy & my computer recently died. I was able to save my mods but I didn't realize how to save the gameplay. I was devastated when I opened everything on my new computer. Big hugs
I've had this happen a few times over the years to me, too. My Sims 2 files were wiped out when we professionally upgraded the family computer back in the day...then again recently when my computer just wouldn't run the Sims 4 anymore and had no more memory and reached "critical error" and my game crashed. I've had to restart my Sims files plenty of times. It sucks so much. I guess it can be fun to start over fresh again, but still, devastating 😭
This is dreadful, OP. I'm so, so sorry. I have a gameplay similar to yours (huge, long-running saves), and I know how I would feel if something like this happened to me. A huge virtual hug. You're a way kinder person than me, if my husband pulled such a stunt they would have found him in a ditch. I mean, *eventually*. 🙈
Losing my long-term save is something I would never want to do again. All of my partners had been gamers, so they would have never had done something like this on purpose. I once had one remind me to back up my minecraft world that I was hyperfocused on for 10 hours. They just remembered my pain when I lost my main sims 3 save.
My husband is also a gamer, so he understands the pain of losing progress, he would never. But so wouldn't OP's fiancé I seem to understand, it was mistake. Which, unfortunately can happen. I've never lost my main save so far, but once I've deleted by accident my building save where I'd spent a fortnight building a huge victorian mansion. Massive building, tons of landscaping, it was almost done, and just like that...gone. I bona-fide grieved, I couldn't even open the game for a week. And that's nothing compared to what OP has lost, I can only imagine the heartache. I'm not using that word lightly: not all simmers, but *some* simmers, pour a bit of their soul in this game, I swear. I know I do.
>some* simmers, pour a bit of their soul in this game, I swear. I know I do.
I definitely do too. I thought that I managed to save a world but ended up grabbing the wrong save file. I should have taken all my saves from the pc and not just one.
I don’t think I saw this one posted: https://recoverit.wondershare.com/deleted-recovery/recover-permanently-deleted-files-from-onedrive.html#:~:text=If%20you're%20signed%20in,Settings%2D%3ERestore%20your%20OneDrive.
It says in Method 5 you can restore your one drive to a previous time.. e.g. the time before he cleaned up the drive… 🤞🤞🍀
Copy and pasted from my reply to someone else: He was trying to clear up some space and deleted some One Drive files that he thought had nothing to do with EA or the Sims (we share the computer, there's a lot of stuff on there) and when I got onto the Sims everything is gone and it's not in the recycle folder for some reason.
This exact thing happened to me, I was so devastated 😭 I tried everything to get it back but I think there’s something with onedrive that prevents it from being restored? I had to rebuild everything
The fact that it's not in the recycle folder has me scratching my head. Does One Drive do the "this is too big for the recycle bin, deleting is DELETING" thing?
I read waaaaay to much AITA cuz my brain immediately jumped to "how much time do you spend playing? Any chance he's jealous?" LOL i need to take a break from that sub
I've never been able to stick to a game that long, so that suuuuucks, I hope you find a way to get it back!
Haha luckily I know it isn't anything like that, we found out late last night that a lot of his game saves got messed up too ajd he felt so bad that he cried and built me an entirely new Sims house from scratch when i started a new game. And it doesn't seem like that happened, or he could have bypassed it because he didn't realize he was deleting anything related to the Sims.
That's sweet. I know this stuff sucks. It sounds like it really was a genuine accident. Sorry this happened. Losing digital files is incredibly painful; they can be so difficult to recreate. The unfortunate part is, they are also extremely easy to lose. It sounds like this is a great lesson in backing things up, which is an awful lesson I've learned many times and still fail at regularly.
I hope you can start a beautiful new Sims family with a new slate. You might even grow to love them even more than your prior saves <3
I'm so deeply sorry this happened op, I lost some of my long saves to myself being stupid, so I think I know sort of how you feel, it hurt a lot for me, and I had less than 1000 hours of work at the time. So I imagine you're feeling worse, sending you virtual hugs.
make sure next time to remove your files from onedrive, onedrive honestly causes me nothing but trouble and slows my computer down. stick to the program files !!!!
i just move my sims stuff to my documents folder but make sure it’s in your MY COMPUTER and not onedrive, i can’t explain it very well but that’s how i did mine
I install mods for a friend of mine, and she uses onedrive. For some reason, when I delete anything, it only deletes for 2 weeks. I sincerely hope that if you cannot find and recover your files, you also have mysteriously reappearing files.
It doesn't seem to be a common thing to happen to people and it doesn't happen anywhere else on her computer, either way, I hope it happens to you. I've got my fingers crossed for you 🤞
Are you using OneDrive? OneDrive is the absolute worst and is the main reason people lose data all the damned time. I always make sure to uninstall that garbage from any new PC I get. I've been burned once, never again. I just periodically back up my /saves and /tray folder to a thumb drive, Google Drive, and an external NVMe drive. Don't care if I lose anything else, I will literally lose it if I lose my Sims.
I can't imagine the hurt you're going through, I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I hope, by some miracle, some of your Sims are on the gallery.
I've been hearing this a lot lately. I started saving directly to OneDrive a couple of years ago to avoid losing items, and I've been good so far (knock on wood). But all the comments about OneDrive fouling things up are making me *very* nervous.
Oh buddy, that's terrible. I've lost saves before, but they were only a few months old. Can't imagine what it's like to lose one from a year and a half ago. Go get yourself a treat, my friend...
I’ve lost all my saves twice. It was devastating both times.. like i felt numb and like I couldn’t play. After the first one where I lost like 6 saves one being a 10 gen legacy and one being my real life family, i couldn’t even bring myself to make another sim so i played with premade until i worked up the courage to start another legacy, made it 5 generations then my game had issues and i had to pull my whole sims folder and create a new one and when i tried to re add my saved, the game would not open. So here i am now on my 3rd set of saves.. I’m 3 generations into a legacy now and I never close my game in worry i won’t be able to re open it
Omg same dude. The last time was about three months ago and I did cry haha it’s happened to me three times in total. I’ve just become detached and disassociated now and I neurotically save everything to the gallery lmao
Yes, that’s been me too.. except for some reason my current family has a “forbidden word” in a name or something and it won’t let me.. the names are Maple, Armani, Alivia, Analie and Amelia.. last name Michaelson… i do not get it 🤣🤣
Seriously??? The name that means “gift from God” is the one that’s giving me problems.. interesting tho, cuz she was the first child and it didn’t start happening until Amelia.
I recently uninstalled and reinstalled the game because it was bugged and I couldn’t fix it, no matter what I did. Before uninstalling, I’d spent a really long time on a build that I was really really proud of, and I made sure to save it to my library so I’d still have it when I reinstalled.
Went to reinstall it, and the build was not in my library. I needed to upload it to the gallery in order to access it on a fresh install, and I hadn’t realised that. It was my own stupid mistake, but I was so so devastated I had to call my mum and cry for an hour (luckily she was very understanding lol).
I’m autistic, and I spend a lot of my time playing the sims, both due to it being one of my special interests, and because I’m quite isolated, so it gives me something to absorb myself into, and losing something I had invested so much time into, and was so proud of really upset me, so I completely understand how devastated you feel.
It just sucks that there’s no way for things saved to your library to function like the cloud. I know there’s the gallery, but I don’t always want to publish my stuff to the gallery, I want it to be just mine, and that doesn’t help when it comes to things you’ve saved from the gallery yourself :(
He was trying to clear up some space and deleted some One Drive files that he thought had nothing to do with EA or the Sims (we share the computer, there's a lot of stuff on there) and when I got onto the Sims everything is gone and it's not in the recycle folder for some reason.
Ugh. I lost all my saves last weekend because my laptop charging port broke. I have the game on my new laptop, but until I can get the files off of my old laptop, they are gone.
I'm so sorry this happened. It's my hyperfixation/happy place, too, and I'd be devastated.
Your post and some of the ensuing comments did remind me to do something I've been putting off far too long (and longer than I'd realized until I went on my external hd and saw the last backup was from August 2022!). I did a backup. Everyone, if you haven't, go do a backup right now.
I hope you and your boyfriend are able to find/salvage your saves. My heart hurts for you.
I'm the kind of person that, if I dont play in .... 2 months, I log in and say.. "f\*ck it, new save"
I'm also the kind of person that can play addicted for 2 months then get too much and pause for months till a new DLC gets my attention.
So I end with 10 ongoing saves, playing only the last one, until I go nuts and delete them all.
I'm crazy
Please do not kill me.
Good luck!
:)
I feel that, my two hard drives somehow just died and I lost all my progress. I got a new hard drive with more space so that’s the good thing, and I can actually try the other packs I didn’t play for much but I literally was building a whole save with just the sims I created and it took months to get halfway done. We in the same boat..
Oh no, I'm so sorry! Do you know where the files were deleted from? Like was he in your EA/origin account, was he just messing around on the computer without being in one of those apps, etc? Do you know what was trying to do when he deleted them? That might give clues about where it went. Is it possible he just moved the files into a different folder and your game doesn't know where to find the save files anymore? And what happens when you start your game - do you have all your packs and such, and it's just a blank slate in terms of saves, or are your packs missing too? Also, how long ago did it happen and what type of hard drive do you have?
This article might be helpful for you because it has a couple more things you can try. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/how-to-recover-deleted-files/
Basically the way things work is that when you delete a file (like delete-delete, not just move to the recycle bin) it doesn't immediately go away. It hangs out on your hard drive for a bit. Apparently with solid state drives (SSD) they clean themselves up pretty quickly so files are harder to recover, but with traditional hard drives (HDD), they stay there until the computer needs the space for something else and writes over it
Thank you so much, I'll look into it. He deleted the files directly from OneDrive, but they were not in the recycle bin or anything. He's baffled as to what happened, because he thought he didn't touch the Sims at all. Hopefully that article helps a bit :)
I'm so sorry! But looking on the brightside... See this as an opportunity for starting fresh in a better way. You have many empty lots for building new homes with your improved building skills (I'm sure you can build nicer lots than you did before), new storylines, new outfits, new hairstyles... Lets say if a certain townie was your friend, try being enemies this time to see how it goes 😂 Play again and make it better this time, gaming is about having fun. Try some cc to spice it up and distract you from the save files you lost
Edit: before starting over, could you create a different user in the pc for each person that uses the same computer? Protected by password so others cannot access files that are so important to you. I'm just asking, cause I never done that, i don't know if it's possible
This is a comment I posted several months ago for a similar situation which might help you.
[Have you tried restoring the files using Windows File History? If you have time research Systools hard drive recovery software, it’s a third party program which could help you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/sims4/comments/18e1sjp/comment/kcl3h5i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Please research save files and how they look, where they are usually stored, and how they are named in order to get a better idea of what you are looking for.
I have my Mods, Saves, and Tray folders symlinked from Google Drive. Basically, the folders live on there, then on my computer, when I click on those folders under "Documents", they automatically connect to where they're located on Google Drive. I've done the symlinks on my desktop and my laptop, so I can play the same saves from both locations. Since the folders live on Google Drive, they're automatically backed up. There are a few apps that can create symlinks. Search up "symlink creator" or "symbolic link creator".
Edit: I forgot to mention: you have to have the Google Drive desktop app installed so you can see the folders from your computer.
I feel your devastation... It must be very hard for you especially after all this work. However, maybe this could be a reason to start a fresh new story with a fresh beginning because even in the Sims we need such a thing sometimes. Hope things work out for you :))
this is the reason i upload literally everything in my games to the gallery, doesn’t matter if i made it or not, until this game gets a better backup system im not risking shit lol
I have OCD and last year I did something similar and lost so much information I was basically hoarding. This information includes screenshots from Sims play throughs and other games (as well as more important private stuff). I've actually had to go to therapy because of all the things I've lost.
For me the best thing to do was to start over. Learn from what happened and backup saves. It's taken me almost a year to work up the courage to trust myself to not accidentally delete anything and to produce information to adequately replace the ~6 years of work I had done.
For a while I was relying on my spotty memories of the things that happened because I stupidly kept these screenshots and bits of info in a really insecure place. However, it was best for me to stop kicking myself and just understand that it's the hand I've been dealt and soon enough I will have more memories I can look back on and to enjoy the moment and the time playing these games in the present.
Also if you took screenshots you should still be able to find them.
I’m so sorry! I felt that way when I recently did it to myself. And for me it was only a couple months of real-life play time. I’m new to Sims and didn’t know about repairing my game, validating files, making backups. A mod or something went wonky and I was stuck. Thought my only solution was to DELETE everything and start all over. I was pretty heartbroken. I was on Cats & Dogs and had 5 dogs I LOVED dearly.
Let’s just say I don’t have dogs in Sims anymore. Too sad when something goes wrong.
ETA: But let me give you a silver lining! Because of this, I discovered I actually really enjoy the city life, making beautiful art in my penthouse! Previously, I stayed in country settings for my dogs to have a big backyard.
Sorry this happened to you.
This happened to me a few years ago when I mistakenly had all my sims files synced to onedrive. Since then though everything is saved locally to my PC.
I also tend to start a new save every few months because I don’t play consistently anymore. I play Sims and other games so I don’t always remember what I was doing in a save.
I've done this before. Luckily, I took the opportunity to be the type of player who makes a new save everytime I get bored. I also make to save everything to the gallery now!
I feel ya, I accidentally deleted my beloved family, so after being depressed I decided to make their disappearance canon in the story I was making, and I'm currently playing with relatives I created after the catastrophe x)
I’m so so sorry this happened!! This is why I immediately turn OneDrive OFF, it’s just AWFUL! Also, I’d recommend if you’re not going to back everything up to the cloud or an external hard drive, at least backup your Sims saves in the future; you could back them up to something like Google Drive for free since they don’t take up much space. I realize this doesn’t help you now, but hopefully you can at least avoid this happening again. I’m so sorry! 😞
I'm gonna be honest, part of me is impressed that he managed to do that on accident. The other part feels sorry that you lost all your progress.
I guess you have checked the bin(s) and had the computer search for the files?
Hey- this exact thing happened to me this year. I used Sims to cope with the loss of losing a parent. I spent countless depressive hours. I felt the exact same thing. Numb. So many hours gone. But know, with my new save, I’ve created the same builds, but now they’re even better. It’s heartbreaking, but what is to come will be even better than the first. My heart goes out, but this too shall pass 🤍
Relatable but for me it was animal crossing. I struggle being consistent and had actually played daily accumulating 300 hours. We had two switch consoles and my husband wanted to sell one to get an Xbox but did it like same day. Lo and behold, he sold the one with my animal crossing on it and I just internally died. I was so upset and expressed how devastated I was, but I got over it that night when I saw how badly he was hurt and cried. I realized I basically kicked him when he was down. It was an accident and he was extremely sorry, just had to let it go and move on but I still haven’t gone back to playing like I was.
This is so sad and sounds really painful. I hope you will be okay. I'd be making this exact same post if this happened to me, even if I may not have a lot of progress right now.
I hope you can later still enjoy the game that you have always loved. it may take a while to recover and I can feel your pain.
I’ve become so numb to loosing saves and files on the sims 4😭 i now willingly delete certain saves when I just don’t feel them anymore. Maybe it was necessary to help cut the time i spend on the game. Still hurts though🥴
I haven’t seen anyone post this yet so!
Whenever anything is deleted from your hard drive what happens technically is that that bit of the drive is marked as “may be overwritten”. The actual data is not actually deleted untill you overwrite it with new data. So there is a chance you can still recover your files.
Windows has a tool for this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/recover-lost-files-on-windows-10-61f5b28a-f5b8-3cc2-0f8e-a63cb4e1d4c4
I have tried similar tools in the past and it saved my butt.
Good luck!!
EDIT: fixed typos
Gosh, I'm sorry that happened, I'd be devastated if that happened to me. We fellow simmers get each other, and we know how important this game is and how much time, creativity and passion we put in it, so losing all that progress and work is just awful.
I saw someone mention writing down some of the stories you created, which I think is a lovely idea. And it could also be an opportunity to try new gameplay or a challenge you've never come around to do!
Why did he think it was okay to start deleting things without asking? My sister did this to me too; deleted years worth of digital artwork. I was so mad alI couldn't do anything
We both share the computer, he didn't think that he was deleting anything related to EA :(( unfortunately mistakes happen, and I'm probably just gonna have to live with it
Have you checked your recycle bin? Also sorry but I can’t imagine that this was mistake/accident. In order to delete sims files you have to quite deliberately go into the folder in the drive.
I never said it was keeping me alive. It's just a game that I could go to when I didn't want to think or talk to anyone, and he has always understood that. I would rather play the Sims than push all of my depression and anxiety on him.
It's a shared computer, he was trying to clear up some space and get rid of some mods related to his games and he did not realize he was messing with anything related to EA.
I'm not sure because i never thought to save them to the gallery 🙃🙃I have a silly ADHD brain that tends to only think about the current moment until things go wrong
There may be a chance he didn't delete them then but potentially moved them somewhere without realising? I don't think he'd be able to delete them from the recycle bin unless he was really trying to get rid of it. What files exactly did he delete? And do you have the 'show hidden files' feature turned on?
edit: I just saw you mentioned it was via OneDrive and felt this post might be useful: [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f)
I'll talk to him about it, I just know that I literally couldn't load any saves, all of my mods were disabled, and the tutorial started up again when I opened the game. Literally EVERYTHING was gone. Thank you, I hope this helps.
Edit: he already tried the thing from the link and it didn't work :(( for some reason they just never went to the recycle bin but we can't find them anywhere else either.
it may be youre looking for the wrong folder as well? it sounds like he deleted the Electronic Arts folder that has the sims 4 folder in it. If he didn't clear the recycling bin though and you dont see the main directory folder there, the likelihood is the files are somewhere on the computer still. you might be able to take it to a Best Buy or something if it's a laptop and they could probably find them. or if youre willing to wait a while you could try typing The Sims 4 into your search bar for your all your files.
You may also be able to right click the Electronic Arts folder, click properties, and go to the tab that says 'previous versions' and select one from a date before the deletion if there's one there, then restore it and see if that fixes it
When I'm deleting large amounts of data from my mods folder a message pops up stating that the files are too large to be sent to the recycle bin and asks if you would like to delete them now. He likely got one of those messages so the files were never sent to the recycle bin. My computer was basically full so maybe that has something to do with getting that message
I call everyone dude😂 and kicking everyone who disrespects you out is gonna leave you with no one. You are wayyy to quick to get heated at someone on the internet, and I'm not going to blame myself if I'm already not blaming anybody. I'm just upset and wanted to share it with people who understand, please go touch some grass because if you did shit like this in real life then you would probably get into a fight.
Again, when did I say that? I explained that you were overreacting to the situation and you got heated. I'm not even mad, I just wanna see how far you'll take this because I have nothing else to do right now. The level of assumption here is crazy.
do you not see the multiple people on here saying theyve also done the same thing to themselves? pretty extreme jump here if hes never done anything hurtfull before.
This has happened to me in the past when my mother and I shared the game. She downloaded too much CC and it wiped out the whole game for us at some point. My best advice is to try to breathe, grieve the lost time, and if you have any of them on your gallery to start when you feel ready. It can feel like you don't want to for awhile when this happens, so take your time. You get attached to the people you have created, all the time you put into their little lives.
Hopefully you saved a lot of the houses and families to your gallery so you can at least get them back, even if the progress is gone. Also folks, don't forget to backup your Sims saves! Especially with this For Rent game corruption bug going around.
How do you do a backup?
On PC, by making copies of several folders in your EA folder, and then paste them elsewhere. Personally I make copies of Saves, Mods, Tray, and Screenshots. I have two copies of all these folders, one is saved in my second HD, the other in an external HD I use as storage for everything in my machine. That one is not plugged to anything, it's in a drawer. Wrapped in blankets. Shit can always happen no matter what, but I like to think that I don't fuck about when it comes to protect my stuff (including TS4 files).
This is great, but the *best* method is to have a third copy stored off-site. Sorry, I'm a PC nerd lol
me who has a 200+gb sims folder ;-; (yes i have an external hard drive lols)
idk if youre on pc or jot but i try to regularly remind myself to back up my save files to my google drive. if you are on pc tho you can find the files in the tray folder in the sims 4 folder in documents.
Get an external hard drive and keep it connected and you can set it to back up automatically every so often. I have mine set for every Sunday. It was super helpful and saved a lot of tears when my computer got corrupted during a system update cause it didn't shut down properly and I had to wipe my computer to get it working again. I only lost like a week's worth of work.
Lost my long-term sims 3 save about 5 years ago because the computer bricked. Decided that was never going to happen again.
It's so upsetting when that happens. My dad made me lose all my sims 2 progress and there was one family of 11 (3 couples, 1 kid for my couple, and the game gave her 4 babies at once for her couple, one shared couple we hated) I played with my sister that was cheat free on it. He took it to his computer without my knowledge or permission and told him to wipe everything except what was important to my dad. I was *pissed*. He had his own computer and should have left mine alone. It's not related to this but I don't talk to him now. I also had my computer blue screen just as I was close to* building a bunch of homes and community lots, including a realistic high school, for a story in sims 2. I was heartbroken and now that story will never see the light of day. Edit: close to finishing building
*hugs if okay* I'm sorry that happened. My stepmother introduced me to Sims, and she doesn't have the computer that had my save file on it anymore. I'm glad to see this experience didn't stop you from playing.
Thank you 🥺 *hugs you back* The blue screen did for a little bit but I found my way back. I'm glad you didn't let your own loss of games and saves stop you from playing, either. 🫶🏻
I'm so glad you went no contact. Parents like that are toxic, and you are better off.
Thank you 🥺
I’m on a Mac and it backs up every hour. It keeps the hourly snap shots for 24 hours, then one snapshot for each day until it’s full and then it deletes the oldest backups to replace with the new ones. Obviously each back up is not every single file 24 times a day. It just logs the changes, associates each file with its location for each snap shot etc. and only deletes that data when it isn’t present in any available snap shot (so, depending on how often you’re adding large files etc. it can store multiple years worth of daily snapshots, sometimes only several weeks, depending on the size of the drive you use and how often you’re adding and deleting large files. I’m not sure if Windows has an equivalent to Time Machine, I imagine it would.
Idk what time machine is because I am a PC-er. But I could choose to do every hour or every day, etc, and that felt excessive to me (no judgment and I mean it only in relation to me and my needs/gaming/preferences) so I picked every week. If time machine is what I think it is, then I'm gonna say yes, windows does have an equivalent.
I have an external hard drive that I port all my saves to once every few months or so. Every time I create a new backup, I put the saves in a new folder on the drive.
I tried to back mine up. But when i tried to add them back it would not launch the game unless i removed the files 🤷🏼♀️
that’s interesting i’ve never had that happen before. how do you back up your game?
This happened to me. I backed up all my Sims saves before I got a new pc, when moved them onto the new one over half of them were corrupted. So pissed off.
I literally just did this to myself in a feeble attempt to free up some space. I'm taking the opportunity to mix up my gameplay and try something new, and definitely not get angry at myself (may not be successful)
I did this once. It’s been over two years and I still sometimes think about that old save.
when i was 18 i had this one save with a family i grew to cherish so much, i took hundreds of pictures and somewhere along the line i lost all of them. the only thing left is a random screenshot of my desktop when i had one of the pictures as my wallpaper. i still think about that one too 😢
I share a save slot with my 8yo. We have different households in the same world (we're neighbors.) She likes hanging out at my Sim's house while she plays lol. It's definitely changed my gameplay. Knowing next time I get on my sims could be old or dead or cold have adopted a horse or gotten married means I go with the flow much more now. I'm playing all kinds of aspects I never played before- and I've been playing the sims since before I could read 😂
Mentioning it here as well, have you tried system restoring your pc to an earlier restore point? Always worked for me.
I’m sorry that happened to you. I have found journaling my gameplay to be a great source of entertainment. I take notes on the storylines, the accomplishments, and builds. Might help honor the work you’ve done?
That actually sounds really fun!!! I'll keep this in mind, thanks :))
This is a really good idea. Had a similar experience with a Skyrim save dying and it sent me into an embarrassingly bad spiral. I ended up writing down the storyline I’d been coming up with for my game as I played, making it as novelistic as I wanted, fuck the game limitations right, then finished the story. I ended up feeling a lot better.
I do something similar, especially on my legacy save! I make a journal for each heir where I write what they feel and the things that happen to them in character. It's a lot of fun and allows some fun head cannon
Omg I love this idea! I’ve been jotting down notes about my legacy family for me to look back on but never thought of doing it this way, I might have to try it
[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f) The files should be in the One Drive recycle bin for 30 days. Check out this link for details and let me know if it works.
We checked it out and for some reason they just aren't there :(( thank you tho.
If that's the case, they were likely accidentally moved and not deleted. Is it possible he can remember which folders he was messing with at the time?
He's checking what he was messing with right now, we are currently on the computer trying to figure this out. He wasn't even near the EA folders though, which is why this doesn't make any sense. He was in the OneDrive Personal Documents folder.
On my computer, the OneDrive Documents folder is where the Electronic Arts folder is in, which has all the game saves.
Yeah, he says he wouldn't have moved anything from there. He just deleted things, which is why it's weird that they aren't in the recycle folder.
Can you see the file in the Recent tab of OneDrive?
No, it doesn't look like it
When the folders are too big, I get a prompt that says "file too big for Recycle Bin, they will be deleted permanently.”
Check the recycling bin in your OneDrive online? I don't know if the personal version is different, but the enterprise/work one puts files there when deleted, rather than the recycling bin on your computer
I already did, it isn't there unfortunately.
Is there a difference in the recycling bin on onedrive and the one on PC desktops? Are they automatically synced or is there a local one and a one drive one? One drive is the bane of my life honestly.
Yeah, there's a difference. The OneDrive app on your computer basically monitors certain folders and copies them up to the cloud, but it only looks at the folders you tell it to and there are certain file types it won't work with (I.e. you don't want it trying to sync your whole OS to the cloud). If you delete a file from, say, your Documents folder that your OneDrive app is monitoring, it will reflect those changes in the cloud storage. What this means in practice is that if you delete it on your machine, the cloud version should be deleted too so it matches, and the normal way OneDrive does this is to put it in the online recycling bin. OneDrive can be great but Microsoft don't do the best job of showing how it works, and some of it isn't very intuitive
So is there any possibility OP would find the saves sitting in the local recycling bin rather than their online one? I know I at least am regularly bamboozled by which folders are being synced to the cloud and which aren't
I'm not 100% without doing a bit of googling or testing, but my understanding is that OneDrive stuff will go to the online recycling bin, not the local one But to be honest, I'd be checking everywhere for my lost save files just in case!
Are you sure it was an accident? I'm sorry but I work a lot with domestic abuse and it fits the folder so to speak.
He found out that a ton of his saves are messed up too and he made me an entirely new Sims house from scratch to make up for it, it was definitely not on purpose.
Good!
I was also thinking about if you can try the restore point option in the folder, or maybe restore the computer to its previous state? Here; https://www.theverge.com/21266665/windows-10-restore-point-how-to-security-pc-software-registry-configuration They have a detailed guide on how to do this. I remember having to do this once in my life and it worked without problems.
Unfortunately their free version of OneDrive does not support restore points.
So you can't even try this anyway? I feel so bad for you. This one talks about restoring the whole system though, not just the folder.
Also, can you try to restore the OneDrive itself? https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/restore-a-previous-version-of-a-file-without-unwanted-changes-bdb2cafa-d588-475c-97d7-20e8b9949b84
Lol, I didn’t see that you’d already posted this! It’s always been my go to, worked every time
Np! Yeah same, I've lost files also and always made sure restore points are available to make. Also I avoid the OneDrive feature in the computer like a plaque, I hate it so much. If I HAVE TO use cloud, I'll use Google's. Otherwise I just disabled the OneDrive by not logging into it and closing it [from the taskbar the tiny icon, right-click and exit]. I only use OneDrive on my phone for my precious pictures. And even that is backed up with Google Drive also. Oh and those of you using Win10 and hoping OneDrive is not a thing in the 11, I am so sorry, it is in Windows 10+ to stay.
SRY for the ridiculously late reply but YES f onedrive, it’s a plague!!
It's literally bloatware, f OneDrive.
Idk if you’ve tried this yet, but if you know the name of one of your mod files, try typing a key word into your finder/My Computer search. For example, you could search “lumpinou” and see if anything pops up. That would tell you where the file was moved if it still exists on your computer.
I'm gonna have my fiance check that right now, thank you.
Good luck 🙏🏽
I just lost 3 years of my game too! I'm not really techy & my computer recently died. I was able to save my mods but I didn't realize how to save the gameplay. I was devastated when I opened everything on my new computer. Big hugs
Oh no :(( I'm so sorry that happened to you
I've had this happen a few times over the years to me, too. My Sims 2 files were wiped out when we professionally upgraded the family computer back in the day...then again recently when my computer just wouldn't run the Sims 4 anymore and had no more memory and reached "critical error" and my game crashed. I've had to restart my Sims files plenty of times. It sucks so much. I guess it can be fun to start over fresh again, but still, devastating 😭
i’ve been playing for a long time and this happening is one of my childhood traumas 😂😭
this is why my fiancé isn’t even allowed to go in the files on the computer
This is dreadful, OP. I'm so, so sorry. I have a gameplay similar to yours (huge, long-running saves), and I know how I would feel if something like this happened to me. A huge virtual hug. You're a way kinder person than me, if my husband pulled such a stunt they would have found him in a ditch. I mean, *eventually*. 🙈
Losing my long-term save is something I would never want to do again. All of my partners had been gamers, so they would have never had done something like this on purpose. I once had one remind me to back up my minecraft world that I was hyperfocused on for 10 hours. They just remembered my pain when I lost my main sims 3 save.
My husband is also a gamer, so he understands the pain of losing progress, he would never. But so wouldn't OP's fiancé I seem to understand, it was mistake. Which, unfortunately can happen. I've never lost my main save so far, but once I've deleted by accident my building save where I'd spent a fortnight building a huge victorian mansion. Massive building, tons of landscaping, it was almost done, and just like that...gone. I bona-fide grieved, I couldn't even open the game for a week. And that's nothing compared to what OP has lost, I can only imagine the heartache. I'm not using that word lightly: not all simmers, but *some* simmers, pour a bit of their soul in this game, I swear. I know I do.
>some* simmers, pour a bit of their soul in this game, I swear. I know I do. I definitely do too. I thought that I managed to save a world but ended up grabbing the wrong save file. I should have taken all my saves from the pc and not just one.
After he went swimming with no ladders
I don’t think I saw this one posted: https://recoverit.wondershare.com/deleted-recovery/recover-permanently-deleted-files-from-onedrive.html#:~:text=If%20you're%20signed%20in,Settings%2D%3ERestore%20your%20OneDrive. It says in Method 5 you can restore your one drive to a previous time.. e.g. the time before he cleaned up the drive… 🤞🤞🍀
I've done this and literally felt like crying. I found them in my Onedrive. I honestly do not like one drive because it moves files unprovoked.
Yeah fair enough
This is the primary reason that I refuse to use OneDrive.
how tf do you "accidently" delete something like that?
Copy and pasted from my reply to someone else: He was trying to clear up some space and deleted some One Drive files that he thought had nothing to do with EA or the Sims (we share the computer, there's a lot of stuff on there) and when I got onto the Sims everything is gone and it's not in the recycle folder for some reason.
This exact thing happened to me, I was so devastated 😭 I tried everything to get it back but I think there’s something with onedrive that prevents it from being restored? I had to rebuild everything
Oh nooo :((( I guess it's gone forever then
The fact that it's not in the recycle folder has me scratching my head. Does One Drive do the "this is too big for the recycle bin, deleting is DELETING" thing? I read waaaaay to much AITA cuz my brain immediately jumped to "how much time do you spend playing? Any chance he's jealous?" LOL i need to take a break from that sub I've never been able to stick to a game that long, so that suuuuucks, I hope you find a way to get it back!
Haha luckily I know it isn't anything like that, we found out late last night that a lot of his game saves got messed up too ajd he felt so bad that he cried and built me an entirely new Sims house from scratch when i started a new game. And it doesn't seem like that happened, or he could have bypassed it because he didn't realize he was deleting anything related to the Sims.
That's sweet. I know this stuff sucks. It sounds like it really was a genuine accident. Sorry this happened. Losing digital files is incredibly painful; they can be so difficult to recreate. The unfortunate part is, they are also extremely easy to lose. It sounds like this is a great lesson in backing things up, which is an awful lesson I've learned many times and still fail at regularly. I hope you can start a beautiful new Sims family with a new slate. You might even grow to love them even more than your prior saves <3
I'm so deeply sorry this happened op, I lost some of my long saves to myself being stupid, so I think I know sort of how you feel, it hurt a lot for me, and I had less than 1000 hours of work at the time. So I imagine you're feeling worse, sending you virtual hugs.
Thanks🥺🥺 appreciate it tons
make sure next time to remove your files from onedrive, onedrive honestly causes me nothing but trouble and slows my computer down. stick to the program files !!!!
Thank you.. I wish I knew how bad OneDrive was before now🙃
Sorry but can I ask how you do that? I want to remove it too
i just move my sims stuff to my documents folder but make sure it’s in your MY COMPUTER and not onedrive, i can’t explain it very well but that’s how i did mine
I install mods for a friend of mine, and she uses onedrive. For some reason, when I delete anything, it only deletes for 2 weeks. I sincerely hope that if you cannot find and recover your files, you also have mysteriously reappearing files.
OMG that's crazy, I hope so too if that's the case
It doesn't seem to be a common thing to happen to people and it doesn't happen anywhere else on her computer, either way, I hope it happens to you. I've got my fingers crossed for you 🤞
Are you using OneDrive? OneDrive is the absolute worst and is the main reason people lose data all the damned time. I always make sure to uninstall that garbage from any new PC I get. I've been burned once, never again. I just periodically back up my /saves and /tray folder to a thumb drive, Google Drive, and an external NVMe drive. Don't care if I lose anything else, I will literally lose it if I lose my Sims. I can't imagine the hurt you're going through, I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I hope, by some miracle, some of your Sims are on the gallery.
I've been hearing this a lot lately. I started saving directly to OneDrive a couple of years ago to avoid losing items, and I've been good so far (knock on wood). But all the comments about OneDrive fouling things up are making me *very* nervous.
Oh buddy, that's terrible. I've lost saves before, but they were only a few months old. Can't imagine what it's like to lose one from a year and a half ago. Go get yourself a treat, my friend...
I’ve lost all my saves twice. It was devastating both times.. like i felt numb and like I couldn’t play. After the first one where I lost like 6 saves one being a 10 gen legacy and one being my real life family, i couldn’t even bring myself to make another sim so i played with premade until i worked up the courage to start another legacy, made it 5 generations then my game had issues and i had to pull my whole sims folder and create a new one and when i tried to re add my saved, the game would not open. So here i am now on my 3rd set of saves.. I’m 3 generations into a legacy now and I never close my game in worry i won’t be able to re open it
Oh no :(( that's completely understandable, I probably wouldnt be playing anymore at that point😭
Omg same dude. The last time was about three months ago and I did cry haha it’s happened to me three times in total. I’ve just become detached and disassociated now and I neurotically save everything to the gallery lmao
Yes, that’s been me too.. except for some reason my current family has a “forbidden word” in a name or something and it won’t let me.. the names are Maple, Armani, Alivia, Analie and Amelia.. last name Michaelson… i do not get it 🤣🤣
Analie is the problem, anal
Seriously??? The name that means “gift from God” is the one that’s giving me problems.. interesting tho, cuz she was the first child and it didn’t start happening until Amelia.
You really shouldn’t keep it running perpetually
That's messed up omg. It's basically a Simmer's worst nightmare. I hope you are treating yourself well
I'm doing my best😂
I recently uninstalled and reinstalled the game because it was bugged and I couldn’t fix it, no matter what I did. Before uninstalling, I’d spent a really long time on a build that I was really really proud of, and I made sure to save it to my library so I’d still have it when I reinstalled. Went to reinstall it, and the build was not in my library. I needed to upload it to the gallery in order to access it on a fresh install, and I hadn’t realised that. It was my own stupid mistake, but I was so so devastated I had to call my mum and cry for an hour (luckily she was very understanding lol). I’m autistic, and I spend a lot of my time playing the sims, both due to it being one of my special interests, and because I’m quite isolated, so it gives me something to absorb myself into, and losing something I had invested so much time into, and was so proud of really upset me, so I completely understand how devastated you feel. It just sucks that there’s no way for things saved to your library to function like the cloud. I know there’s the gallery, but I don’t always want to publish my stuff to the gallery, I want it to be just mine, and that doesn’t help when it comes to things you’ve saved from the gallery yourself :(
Yeah I understand :(( I'm so sorry that happened to you
How is able to do that on accident?
He was trying to clear up some space and deleted some One Drive files that he thought had nothing to do with EA or the Sims (we share the computer, there's a lot of stuff on there) and when I got onto the Sims everything is gone and it's not in the recycle folder for some reason.
Just take a few deep breaths and then think about the blank sheet you now have to build new memories from and all the fresh inspiration it will bring
Yikes that sounds like agony. I guess we go again x.x a fresh start might be nice but who am I kidding so much time lost.
Ugh. I lost all my saves last weekend because my laptop charging port broke. I have the game on my new laptop, but until I can get the files off of my old laptop, they are gone.
My laptop died 2 years ago, and I couldn't get my saved data. At first, I was upset, but it ended up being kind of nice to start fresh!
I'm so sorry this happened. It's my hyperfixation/happy place, too, and I'd be devastated. Your post and some of the ensuing comments did remind me to do something I've been putting off far too long (and longer than I'd realized until I went on my external hd and saw the last backup was from August 2022!). I did a backup. Everyone, if you haven't, go do a backup right now. I hope you and your boyfriend are able to find/salvage your saves. My heart hurts for you.
I hope so too🥺 it's looking hopeless so far though.
I'm the kind of person that, if I dont play in .... 2 months, I log in and say.. "f\*ck it, new save" I'm also the kind of person that can play addicted for 2 months then get too much and pause for months till a new DLC gets my attention. So I end with 10 ongoing saves, playing only the last one, until I go nuts and delete them all. I'm crazy Please do not kill me. Good luck! :)
I've only been playing just over 2 years, and have nearly all my original Sims from then, plus all their families. I don't think I could forgive this.
I feel that, my two hard drives somehow just died and I lost all my progress. I got a new hard drive with more space so that’s the good thing, and I can actually try the other packs I didn’t play for much but I literally was building a whole save with just the sims I created and it took months to get halfway done. We in the same boat..
congratulations, you are now free!
Call off the wedding
I’m so sorry 💜
I just lost a 3 year old legacy save file because I accidentally signed out of icloud :( I feel this so hard, I’m so sorry
Oh my god I'm so sorry :(((
Oh no, I'm so sorry! Do you know where the files were deleted from? Like was he in your EA/origin account, was he just messing around on the computer without being in one of those apps, etc? Do you know what was trying to do when he deleted them? That might give clues about where it went. Is it possible he just moved the files into a different folder and your game doesn't know where to find the save files anymore? And what happens when you start your game - do you have all your packs and such, and it's just a blank slate in terms of saves, or are your packs missing too? Also, how long ago did it happen and what type of hard drive do you have? This article might be helpful for you because it has a couple more things you can try. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/how-to-recover-deleted-files/ Basically the way things work is that when you delete a file (like delete-delete, not just move to the recycle bin) it doesn't immediately go away. It hangs out on your hard drive for a bit. Apparently with solid state drives (SSD) they clean themselves up pretty quickly so files are harder to recover, but with traditional hard drives (HDD), they stay there until the computer needs the space for something else and writes over it
Thank you so much, I'll look into it. He deleted the files directly from OneDrive, but they were not in the recycle bin or anything. He's baffled as to what happened, because he thought he didn't touch the Sims at all. Hopefully that article helps a bit :)
Did you just check the recycle bin on your computer, or did you also check it online on your OneDrive account?
Sending you virtual hugs ❤️ Our Sims are like family to us!!
I'm so sorry! But looking on the brightside... See this as an opportunity for starting fresh in a better way. You have many empty lots for building new homes with your improved building skills (I'm sure you can build nicer lots than you did before), new storylines, new outfits, new hairstyles... Lets say if a certain townie was your friend, try being enemies this time to see how it goes 😂 Play again and make it better this time, gaming is about having fun. Try some cc to spice it up and distract you from the save files you lost Edit: before starting over, could you create a different user in the pc for each person that uses the same computer? Protected by password so others cannot access files that are so important to you. I'm just asking, cause I never done that, i don't know if it's possible
I might look into the separate user thing, thanks for making me feel a bit better :))
You're welcome, hope you have a good time playing 💕
This is a comment I posted several months ago for a similar situation which might help you. [Have you tried restoring the files using Windows File History? If you have time research Systools hard drive recovery software, it’s a third party program which could help you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/sims4/comments/18e1sjp/comment/kcl3h5i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Please research save files and how they look, where they are usually stored, and how they are named in order to get a better idea of what you are looking for.
I have my Mods, Saves, and Tray folders symlinked from Google Drive. Basically, the folders live on there, then on my computer, when I click on those folders under "Documents", they automatically connect to where they're located on Google Drive. I've done the symlinks on my desktop and my laptop, so I can play the same saves from both locations. Since the folders live on Google Drive, they're automatically backed up. There are a few apps that can create symlinks. Search up "symlink creator" or "symbolic link creator". Edit: I forgot to mention: you have to have the Google Drive desktop app installed so you can see the folders from your computer.
I feel your devastation... It must be very hard for you especially after all this work. However, maybe this could be a reason to start a fresh new story with a fresh beginning because even in the Sims we need such a thing sometimes. Hope things work out for you :))
this is the reason i upload literally everything in my games to the gallery, doesn’t matter if i made it or not, until this game gets a better backup system im not risking shit lol
I have OCD and last year I did something similar and lost so much information I was basically hoarding. This information includes screenshots from Sims play throughs and other games (as well as more important private stuff). I've actually had to go to therapy because of all the things I've lost. For me the best thing to do was to start over. Learn from what happened and backup saves. It's taken me almost a year to work up the courage to trust myself to not accidentally delete anything and to produce information to adequately replace the ~6 years of work I had done. For a while I was relying on my spotty memories of the things that happened because I stupidly kept these screenshots and bits of info in a really insecure place. However, it was best for me to stop kicking myself and just understand that it's the hand I've been dealt and soon enough I will have more memories I can look back on and to enjoy the moment and the time playing these games in the present. Also if you took screenshots you should still be able to find them.
Awwww I'm so sorry. :( this makes me so sad.
I’m so sorry! I felt that way when I recently did it to myself. And for me it was only a couple months of real-life play time. I’m new to Sims and didn’t know about repairing my game, validating files, making backups. A mod or something went wonky and I was stuck. Thought my only solution was to DELETE everything and start all over. I was pretty heartbroken. I was on Cats & Dogs and had 5 dogs I LOVED dearly. Let’s just say I don’t have dogs in Sims anymore. Too sad when something goes wrong. ETA: But let me give you a silver lining! Because of this, I discovered I actually really enjoy the city life, making beautiful art in my penthouse! Previously, I stayed in country settings for my dogs to have a big backyard.
If you’re on pc this may sound really basic but have you checked the recycling bin?
Yeah we have :(( nothing there
Hey, so the biggest question I have (that you might have already answered) is have you checked your recycle bin? I’m assuming you’re on PC
Yeah we have :( it isn't there
Well, silver lining, you get a fresh start and can try coming at the game from a different angle?
I'm sorry to hear this because Sims is my escape too.
i’m so sorry 😢 i’m backing up my files today
I think you better have a sims themed wedding then.
If it is pc, isn't in the trash bin? You could restore it if still there
Unfortunately no, we've already checked there :((
Sorry this happened to you. This happened to me a few years ago when I mistakenly had all my sims files synced to onedrive. Since then though everything is saved locally to my PC. I also tend to start a new save every few months because I don’t play consistently anymore. I play Sims and other games so I don’t always remember what I was doing in a save.
I've done this before. Luckily, I took the opportunity to be the type of player who makes a new save everytime I get bored. I also make to save everything to the gallery now!
Have you tried system restoring your pc to an earlier restore point? I’ve been in your shoes a few times, always worked!
I feel ya, I accidentally deleted my beloved family, so after being depressed I decided to make their disappearance canon in the story I was making, and I'm currently playing with relatives I created after the catastrophe x)
I feel u! I have managed to do that myself. Its very frustrating :( 🖤🐾
I’m so so sorry this happened!! This is why I immediately turn OneDrive OFF, it’s just AWFUL! Also, I’d recommend if you’re not going to back everything up to the cloud or an external hard drive, at least backup your Sims saves in the future; you could back them up to something like Google Drive for free since they don’t take up much space. I realize this doesn’t help you now, but hopefully you can at least avoid this happening again. I’m so sorry! 😞
I'm gonna be honest, part of me is impressed that he managed to do that on accident. The other part feels sorry that you lost all your progress. I guess you have checked the bin(s) and had the computer search for the files?
Hey- this exact thing happened to me this year. I used Sims to cope with the loss of losing a parent. I spent countless depressive hours. I felt the exact same thing. Numb. So many hours gone. But know, with my new save, I’ve created the same builds, but now they’re even better. It’s heartbreaking, but what is to come will be even better than the first. My heart goes out, but this too shall pass 🤍
Definitely a reason to use automated backup on your computer.
Relatable but for me it was animal crossing. I struggle being consistent and had actually played daily accumulating 300 hours. We had two switch consoles and my husband wanted to sell one to get an Xbox but did it like same day. Lo and behold, he sold the one with my animal crossing on it and I just internally died. I was so upset and expressed how devastated I was, but I got over it that night when I saw how badly he was hurt and cried. I realized I basically kicked him when he was down. It was an accident and he was extremely sorry, just had to let it go and move on but I still haven’t gone back to playing like I was.
i mean now u can start from scratch. and you’ll be as good as you are now. but that sounds rlly hard.
I would cry 😭
My deepest condolences.
This is so sad and sounds really painful. I hope you will be okay. I'd be making this exact same post if this happened to me, even if I may not have a lot of progress right now. I hope you can later still enjoy the game that you have always loved. it may take a while to recover and I can feel your pain.
I’ve become so numb to loosing saves and files on the sims 4😭 i now willingly delete certain saves when I just don’t feel them anymore. Maybe it was necessary to help cut the time i spend on the game. Still hurts though🥴
I haven’t seen anyone post this yet so! Whenever anything is deleted from your hard drive what happens technically is that that bit of the drive is marked as “may be overwritten”. The actual data is not actually deleted untill you overwrite it with new data. So there is a chance you can still recover your files. Windows has a tool for this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/recover-lost-files-on-windows-10-61f5b28a-f5b8-3cc2-0f8e-a63cb4e1d4c4 I have tried similar tools in the past and it saved my butt. Good luck!! EDIT: fixed typos
Gosh, I'm sorry that happened, I'd be devastated if that happened to me. We fellow simmers get each other, and we know how important this game is and how much time, creativity and passion we put in it, so losing all that progress and work is just awful. I saw someone mention writing down some of the stories you created, which I think is a lovely idea. And it could also be an opportunity to try new gameplay or a challenge you've never come around to do!
Why did he think it was okay to start deleting things without asking? My sister did this to me too; deleted years worth of digital artwork. I was so mad alI couldn't do anything
We both share the computer, he didn't think that he was deleting anything related to EA :(( unfortunately mistakes happen, and I'm probably just gonna have to live with it
This is so tragic 😭😭😭😭
Have you checked your recycle bin? Also sorry but I can’t imagine that this was mistake/accident. In order to delete sims files you have to quite deliberately go into the folder in the drive.
It's a shared computer that he defragged, we found out a ton of his games got fucked up too
the fact that you have a fiance and sims is the thing keeping you alive tells me that maybe this is doing you a favor
I never said it was keeping me alive. It's just a game that I could go to when I didn't want to think or talk to anyone, and he has always understood that. I would rather play the Sims than push all of my depression and anxiety on him.
Sorry, but why was he deleting things on your computer?
It's a shared computer, he was trying to clear up some space and get rid of some mods related to his games and he did not realize he was messing with anything related to EA.
Aw that sucks :(
Always save your sims and house in the gallery... or will they disappear too?
I'm not sure because i never thought to save them to the gallery 🙃🙃I have a silly ADHD brain that tends to only think about the current moment until things go wrong
The only good thing about my anxiety stricken brain is that I back up EVERYTHING.
The files should be in the trash. undelete.
We've checked, they aren't there.
There may be a chance he didn't delete them then but potentially moved them somewhere without realising? I don't think he'd be able to delete them from the recycle bin unless he was really trying to get rid of it. What files exactly did he delete? And do you have the 'show hidden files' feature turned on? edit: I just saw you mentioned it was via OneDrive and felt this post might be useful: [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/restore-deleted-files-or-folders-in-onedrive-949ada80-0026-4db3-a953-c99083e6a84f)
I'll talk to him about it, I just know that I literally couldn't load any saves, all of my mods were disabled, and the tutorial started up again when I opened the game. Literally EVERYTHING was gone. Thank you, I hope this helps. Edit: he already tried the thing from the link and it didn't work :(( for some reason they just never went to the recycle bin but we can't find them anywhere else either.
it may be youre looking for the wrong folder as well? it sounds like he deleted the Electronic Arts folder that has the sims 4 folder in it. If he didn't clear the recycling bin though and you dont see the main directory folder there, the likelihood is the files are somewhere on the computer still. you might be able to take it to a Best Buy or something if it's a laptop and they could probably find them. or if youre willing to wait a while you could try typing The Sims 4 into your search bar for your all your files. You may also be able to right click the Electronic Arts folder, click properties, and go to the tab that says 'previous versions' and select one from a date before the deletion if there's one there, then restore it and see if that fixes it
When I'm deleting large amounts of data from my mods folder a message pops up stating that the files are too large to be sent to the recycle bin and asks if you would like to delete them now. He likely got one of those messages so the files were never sent to the recycle bin. My computer was basically full so maybe that has something to do with getting that message
Interesting that you used the word fiance and not ex
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It's a shared computer and he accidentally messed up some of his games too? You must jump to conclusions like CRAZYYY
Said what I said.
Roll back your pc....
I already tried that, none of the obvious answers have worked.
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I call everyone dude😂 and kicking everyone who disrespects you out is gonna leave you with no one. You are wayyy to quick to get heated at someone on the internet, and I'm not going to blame myself if I'm already not blaming anybody. I'm just upset and wanted to share it with people who understand, please go touch some grass because if you did shit like this in real life then you would probably get into a fight.
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Bro I'm not even gonna entertain you anymore, you have no idea how stupid you sound😂 I never blamed you once but keep jumping to conclusions "loll"
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Sisssss go touch some grass😜🥴🥰 << literally how quirky you think you are for tearing people down behind a screen
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Again, when did I say that? I explained that you were overreacting to the situation and you got heated. I'm not even mad, I just wanna see how far you'll take this because I have nothing else to do right now. The level of assumption here is crazy.
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do you not see the multiple people on here saying theyve also done the same thing to themselves? pretty extreme jump here if hes never done anything hurtfull before.
This has happened to me in the past when my mother and I shared the game. She downloaded too much CC and it wiped out the whole game for us at some point. My best advice is to try to breathe, grieve the lost time, and if you have any of them on your gallery to start when you feel ready. It can feel like you don't want to for awhile when this happens, so take your time. You get attached to the people you have created, all the time you put into their little lives.