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How to back up and restore saves in The Sims 4

A Sim playing PC in a maximalist goth manor in Ravenswood. It's an adult child of Lily and Victor Feng. The house is black, gold, and teal.

Backing up your files is a great way of avoiding losing data. It’s easy to forget you need to do it with gaming – particularly in the age of cloud saves and automatic back-ups. It wasn’t that long ago that it wasn’t even possible to back up saves for most platforms, either. But, with a number of users on social media reportedly experiencing data loss with recent updates made to The Sims 4 alongside known corruption issues since the launch of For Rent, now seems like the perfect time to build the habit.

Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to back up your Sims saves if you play on PC or Mac. All you need to know is which files to copy. It’s also handy to have some extra space on your drive, cloud storage, or better yet, some kind of physical drive you can use like an external hard drive or even a USB. 

More of a console simmer? You also have the option of backing up your saves for safekeeping. You’ll just need to take some slightly different steps from those playing on PC or Mac.

How to back up your save files for The Sims 4 on PC and Mac

If you know how to use mods and CC with The Sims 4, then you’re already halfway to knowing how to back up your saves, too. It’s straightforward once you know where to look in your game files.

Backing up your save files with File Explorer or Finder can be done without even booting your game up. It also gives you the option of storing your save somewhere outside of your game files, which is the best practice for protecting your data.

Using File Explorer to back up your saves on Windows

All you’ll need to do for this is head to the right place in your game’s folders and copy and paste the files over. Open File Explorer and go here:

C:\Users\[Your username]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves

Your username is probably going to be the first five letters of your name or the email address you used to set up your Windows profile with. Sub that into the section in brackets. If you can’t figure out what it is, just go to the folder manually by finding your Documents, then the Electronic Arts folder. 

Select all by pressing Control (Ctrl) and A. Copy the files by pressing Ctrl and C. Not super comfortable with keyboard extensions? Try selecting all the files in your folder by clicking and dragging a blank space in the folder to capture them all with a rectangle. Then, right-click the files and select copy. This attaches them all to your clipboard.

Paste them elsewhere on your computer or external storage by either right-clicking or pressing Ctrl + V on your keyboard. Now you have two copies of your save files. 

You should ideally put them in a folder named something you’ll be able to find later, like “The Sims 4 Saves [Today’s date]”, or “The Sims 4 Backup”. This way you can find the files easily if you need them again.

Using Finder to back up saves on Mac

Backing up your saves on Mac is super similar to doing it on PC. The main differences stem from which keyboard operations you need to use and the names of some of the software involved.

Using Finder, head here:

Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Saves

Click on the folder and press Command (Cmd) and C on your keyboard to copy it. Then, head over to wherever you want to back it up to – like an external drive or another place on your hard drive – and paste it there using Cmd + V. It’s that simple. You should rename the folder to make it easier to find when you need it.

Ready to plug your saves back in and play?

If you want to reload your save files for whatever reason, you can do so by copying and pasting them back into the folder you got them from in the first place.

If you have any save files in that folder, then feel free to either move them into another folder or delete the files and replace them with your backups. After you’ve pasted the files in, they’ll be available to play next time you boot up.

Backing up saves for The Sims 4 on console

Whether you’re playing on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4/5, you’re still going to want to make sure your precious save files are backed up. No one wants to lose a legacy save ten generations deep, after all. 

How to back up The Sims 4 using PlayStation 4/5

You’re going to have to approach this one slightly differently depending on whether you want to rely on a PlayStation Plus subscription or handle it manually. 

Backing up your saves using PlayStation (PS) Plus

PlayStation Plus subscribers can set their games to automatically back up. You can choose whether these backups are stored on the cloud or on physical hardware that you own.

First, go to Settings. Then, select Application Saved Data Management. Select Auto Upload, then Enable Automatic Uploads. After that point, your saves will automatically back up to your desired storage location.

Backing up your saves on PlayStation manually

This option is particularly helpful as you don’t need to be a PlayStation Plus subscriber to use it. You will, however, need an external storage device like a USB hard drive. 

Plug your storage into your console, then head to Settings. Look for System, then select Back Up and Restore. From there, you’ll be able to choose The Sims 4 as one of the games you back up. This is really easy, but much like on PC and Mac, you’ll have to remember to do it every so often as it can’t be automated.

How to back up The Sims 4 for Xbox One

If you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, your save files will already be backed up to the cloud automatically every time you close the game. It’s a bit of a pain that you need a Game Pass sub for it – given it’s not free, and you have to opt into it – but it does keep your saves safe automatically without you having to do anything at all.

You can also back up your save files in-game

Regardless of which platform you’re playing on, you also have the option of using a couple of in-game methods to make duplicates of your save files. This isn’t a very robust method of backing up your data, since you can’t store it separately from your original save, but it can be useful in a pinch.

You’ve got two options for doing this. One route is to just use the Save As function when saving your game. This creates a copy of your save file without overwriting the previous version. It’s quick and easy.

The second route is done by creating a duplicate of your save using the in-game interface on the home page or when managing your save files. Navigate to your list of saved games and click the two overlapping squares next to the information panel. This creates a second copy of your save file as it is. Bosh.

While these methods are pretty convenient, they’re less safe as these files could be corrupted if something goes wrong with your game following a bad patch or update. This operates pretty much the same as when you select ‘Save As’ instead of ‘Save’ when saving your game.

Something gone awry in your game? Restore your save from an earlier point

Someone in your household died from rabid rodent fever? Your Sim’s partner ran away with a weird townie? Don’t fret about using cheats to fix it. It’s easy enough to just turn back the clock on your save file. 

Open up The Sims 4 homescreen or select the Load Game option. Then, select Load Game. Find the save you wish to restore. There should be a floppy disk icon with a little arrow on it next to the Play and Delete buttons. Select that to bring up a menu of all the restore points for that save. Click Recover on the version you want, then select the tick. When you load your game up, make sure to pick Save As and save the game again.

This is really handy, but there are only so many recovery points for any given save, so don’t rely on it too much. You’re better off trying to make backups of your save, and only using this in a pinch.

Written By

Toni is a writer, content creator, and simulation fanatic. He started playing The Sims 1 in the early 2000s when expansion packs still only cost a fiver and the inflatable sofas were contemporary.

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