Sims 4 household deleted [ Edited ]

[Tori644]

Hi, my iMac laptop was updated and when I went to go play my Sims 4 game, my household was gone. I was reading someone else's comments who had a similar problem as me, but when I created a Sims data user folder, made a new household, saved the household, and then transferred my old Sims saves into my new Sims 4 folder, my old household and progress did not appear on the game page. Is there any reason for this? Maybe I did it wrong? Also, this Microsoft user data folder keeps popping up in my "documents". Can anyone help me with this issue? I am really confused with the whole process and have no idea what I am doing exactly. Also, I am not very good at working computers since I don't use them often lol. So can someone please help me and walk me through step by step on how to restore my progress back? Thank you.

[puzzlezaddict]

@Tori644  It's possible that your iCloud drive is enabled, and your TS4 game folder (the one in Documents) is being moved to cloud storage along with the rest of the contents of your Documents folder.  The game can't find its folder there, so it generates a new one every time it launches.  I don't know what you transferred into your clean game folder, but if it was the contents of the saves folder from the session immediately prior (the one when you initially realized that your save wasn't showing up), you might just have transferred an empty saves folder instead of your original saves.

So the first thing to do is look in your iCloud drive for any game folders that ended up there.  Move them to your desktop for safekeeping.  Then you can either disable iCloud entirely or untick the box to move Documents to the cloud.  Here's a visual, in case it helps:

https://bluebellflora.com/2017/02/06/sims-3-and-sims-4-not-loading-save-games/

Once you've done that, check your Documents folder to see if there's still a TS4 game folder inside (it would be in the EA folder).  If so, you can try the same thing you did before—move the saves folder inside to the trash, and replace it with the saves folder from one of your extra TS4 game folders that you found in cloud storage.  If you have more than one of those, or any extra folders lying around, it might take a few tries to get the right saves folder.  But your existing saves should definitely be in there somewhere.

Just to reiterate, the only TS4 game folder that the game will load must be located in Documents\Electronic Arts.  If it's anywhere else, either on your computer or your iCloud drive, the game won't be able to find it and will just make another one the next time you launch.

[Tori644]

My iCloud is already not enabled. When I opened my Sims 4 folder inside my Electronic Arts folder, I have a Saves folder which has all my progress in it that I lost. So what do I after that? Sorry I'm just really confused. I think I might have a different problem than the person I read that also got their household deleted because nothing seems to be working, even I tried their solution.

[Tori644]

*even when I tried that person's solution.

[Bluebellflora]

@Tori644

You probably saw this in the other thread you're referring to but please could you post the exact file path of your Sims 4 folder? Click on it once to highlight it then hold down CMD and i to bring up the info window: