Sounds easy enough. Except every time I do that, Origin insists on redownloading everything, and in the process wiping everything in the folder I tell it to go to in the "Locate" option. I've tried copying my entire redownloaded game folders and pasting them back but again, it wipes those folders every time. I (after four days of downloading one may get punch drunk and tired, I admit) accidentally pointed Origin to my saved (backup) game folder on my backup drive and sure enough it wiped the contents of those folders and once again tried to reinstall my games and the extra content. I wish it would work for me the way it obviously works for others.
But to assume that others, myself included, "don't know what we're going" or aren't reading the instructions carefully enough or to assume we are not following the instructions is simply a false assumption.
That said, I'll go back to waiting the 2 days it takes to redownload one my games onto my new computer. I'm not sure I'll even bother to try to back them up again. To those of you in my situation, good luck.
Update: Well apparently for The Sims 3 the methods outlined here work perfectly.
1. Copied my entire Sims 3 installation folder into another folder named "My External Sims Games" on my external hard drive and renamed it "The Sims 3 Original."
2. Just in case Origin wiped it all, I created another Folder named "The Sims 3" and copied everything in the Sims 3 Original folder to it.
3. Changed the installation folder in Origin to point to the folder (the new main folder, NOT the Sims 3 folder or the original folder) on the external drive.
4. Clicked download on the Sims 3 in my Library and, after "preparing" and "finalizing," Origin recognized all of it.
So, I stand corrected: for some games this works. But for the Sims 4, it was the redownload and verification cycle. If I had the time I would experiment with all the different scenarios. One more note, don't load Origin before having the external drive connected or it will start the redownload and verification cycle again.
Also, please forgive me if this is "Necroposting," but since the problem is still happening and people are still trying to work around it by posting here, I didn't think it was a true "Necropost." If I've broken any rules, please feel free to delete this post. Thanks to everyone who kindly posted their solutions here.
