This is for those running out of space on their Macs and wanting to save their user data – Saves/Tray/Mods etc. – to an external drive. By following this workaround your entire Electronic Arts folder will exist stored and updated on the external drive although your game will think it is being stored locally on your Mac internal storage (for the equivalent instructions for Windows, caput to Crinrict's site here). This is because yous volition exist creating a symbolic link, also known as a symlink, to reference the file path of your user data stored in another location. To create the symlink you will be using Concluding which can be found in Applications > Utilities.

(If you're a Windows user, head over to Crin'due south site for instructions)

Please be aware that entering erroneous commands into Terminal can have severe consequences  both for the stability of your operating system and your data. You should only follow these instructions if you lot are comfortable using Last and have a solid backup of your system. If annihilation goes catastrophically wrong you can always wipe and reinstall your macOS through Internet Recovery or bootable installer but you lot Will lose all your information.

Ok, happy to go along? I'll starting time off by explaining my setup so y'all can familiarise yourself with my Mac user account and computer name which appear in the screenshots:

  • My Mac user business relationship/Home directory has full Ambassador rights and is called test
  • My computer name is TouchBarMBP
  • The external drive I am using is a 128GB USB-C thumb drive. It MUST be formatted as Mac Os Extended (Journaled) or APFS. It is named USB
  • At the time of writing, I am running macOS 10.15.three Catalina

These instructions move your whole Electronic Arts folder to the external bulldoze and assume that your Electronic Arts binder is currently stored locally on your Mac. Equally such, all games you have installed which store their user data in the Electronic Arts binder will need to have the external bulldoze plugged in to access the information. This includes Sims iii, Sims Medieval, Sims 4, Sims iv Legacy Edition and any other game folders in your Electronic Arts folder. In these instructions I am using my Sims iv user data.

  • Backup your Electronic Arts folder to a separate external drive or cloud storage in instance you inadvertently wipe it.
  • Plug in your external storage device and bank check it is properly mounted in Finder or on your Desktop, depending on your Finder View settings. If needed, utilize Disk Utility to reformat the drive to Mac Bone Extended (Journaled) or APFS:
  • I would recommend reading through these instructions at least once in full earlier applying the workaround and so you are familiar with Terminal and any error and warning messages that pop up during the process.

Step ane – Moving the Electronic Arts folder to the external bulldoze:

  1. The first thing we are going to tell our Mac to do is movement the Electronic Arts folder from the Documents folder to the external drive. Open a Give-and-take or whatsoever text certificate and copy and paste the following command (where mv means move and the tilde ~ indicates your home directory) into the document. This is purely for editing purposes:
    mv ~/Documents/Electronic\ Arts /Volumes/USB/
  2. Supersede USB with the name of your external drive. For example, if your external is chosen EXTERNAL the control would be:
    mv ~/Documents/Electronic\ Arts /Volumes/EXTERNAL/
    However, if your external is called EXTERNAL Drive you have to introduce backslashes earlier the spaces in the name (like Electronic Arts in the Documents binder):
    mv ~/Documents/Electronic\ Arts /Volumes/EXTERNAL\ Drive/
    To prove you where the spaces are, I have entered a blackness X in the command below (for illustrative purposes only):
    mv X ~/Documents/Electronic\ X Arts X /Volumes/EXTERNAL\ X DRIVE /
    Note that the directory file paths are separated with forwards slashes / and file and folder names with multiple words are separated with backslashes \
    If your Electronic Arts folder is to be nested inside another folder on the external you lot must land this conspicuously in the control. For example, if your EXTERNAL Drive has a folder chosen  Game User Data and y'all would like the Electronic Arts binder to be inside this folder the command would look like this:
    mv ~/Documents/Electronic\ Arts /Volumes/EXTERNAL\ DRIVE/Game\ User\ Data/
    and with the black X denoting the spaces:
    mv X ~/Documents/Electronic\ Ten Arts Ten /Volumes/EXTERNAL\XBulldoze/Game\XUser\Ten Data/
  3. Once you are happy with the command, open Terminal and copy and paste it from the Word/Text document into the Terminal window so it looks like this just with your own information. If it is highlighted blackness just press the right arrow on your keyboard to move the cursor to the end of the line:
  4. Hit enter/return to execute the control. Your Electronic Arts folder should have moved from your Documents binder to your external drive. Open the Documents folder to check and open a 2d Finder window showing the external drive.

Step ii – Creating the symlink for the Electronic Arts folder:

  1. Copy the following command into your Word/Text document:
    ln -s /Volumes/USB/Electronic\ Arts ~/Documents/
    replacing USB with your external drive proper noun and paying attention to the forward and back slashes and spaces. If we employ the same example as before with the EXTERNAL DRIVE > Game User Data file paths and names this would exist the upshot:
    ln -s /Volumes/EXTERNAL\ DRIVE/Game\ User\ Data/Electronic\ Arts ~/Documents/
    and with the black Ten denoting the spaces:
    lnX-southwardX/Volumes/EXTERNAL\10Bulldoze/Game\XUser\XInformation/Electronic\XArtsX~/Documents/
  2. In one case you are happy with the control, open Terminal and re-create and paste it from the Word/Text document into the Final window so it looks like this but with your ain information. If it is highlighted black just press the right arrow on your keyboard to move the cursor to the cease of the line:
  3. Hitting enter to execute the command. An Electronic Arts binder will appear in your local Documents folder as an alias with a little arrow in the bottom left corner:whilst the actual Electronic Arts folder is even so condom on the external drive (I also take the game installed on the external, ignore the app in the image below):

Step 3 – Launch your game:

  1. Launch the game as you would unremarkably. You should detect no difference at all, you should exist able to pick up where you terminal saved the game.
  2. If yous go the following error message saying the game is already running:
    • Your external hard bulldoze is not plugged in or not plugged in properly
    • Y'all accept not granted Sims 4 or Origin admission to either your Documents folder or the external drive during the symlink creation process
  3. If yous use CC/Mods and get this message:
    • Your external drive is formatted as ExFAT. You need to start again and format as Mac Bone Extended (Journaled) or APFS.

Security warning windows you may encounter during this procedure if y'all are running macOS Catalina or later:

Make certain you click ok on all these windows to grant your Mac the access it needs to execute the Symlink.

Reversing the symlink:

If y'all want to offset storing your Electronic Arts folder back in the default location in your Documents folder on your Mac, y'all must use Terminal commands to exercise so. Just unplugging the external drive will not forcefulness the game to recreate an Electronic Arts folder in the default location, it will event in the The Sims four is already running dialogue box (run into above). To return the folder dorsum to your Mac:

    1. Copy the post-obit command into Terminal and hit Enter/Render:
      mv ~/Documents/Electronic\ Arts ~/Documents/Electronic\ Arts_bkp
      This volition relocate the electric current symlink/binder to a new name in your Documents binder:
    2. Copy the following command into your Word/Text file and so you lot can edit the external storage role:
      cp -a /Volumes/USB/Electronic\ Arts ~/Documents
      If we use the aforementioned examples from Steps ane & 2 above where your external storage is called EXTERNAL DRIVE and the Electronic Arts binder is within a folder called Game User Data on the external drive, it would look similar this:
      cp -a /Volumes/EXTERNAL\ DRIVE/Game\ User\ Data/Electronic\ Arts ~/Documents
      and with a blackness X denoting where the spaces are:
      cp10-a10/Volumes/EXTERNAL\XBulldoze/Game\10User\XData/Electronic\XArts10~/Documents
    3. Once yous are happy with the command, open Terminal and copy and paste it from the Word/Text certificate into the Final window so it looks like this only with your own information. If it is highlighted blackness only press the right pointer on your keyboard to motion the cursor to the end of the line. Striking enter/render to execute the command:
    4. In your Documents binder you should now run into your Electronic Arts folder back where it used to exist earlier creating the symlink:
      The folder should still be on the external bulldoze too as we take just copied it, not moved it.
    5. Launch your game, zip should take changed and all your saves should nevertheless load perfectly. You tin safely trash the Electronic Arts_bkp alias now, no need for the external drive to be plugged in.
    6. You may encounter organisation security dialogue boxes again, brand sure to click Ok.

Whilst your user information is stored on the external drive, usual troubleshooting methods will be slightly unlike. You cannot now move your Sims 4 to the desktop to force the game to create a clean folder as this will just copy it. Y'all must rename the Sims four folder on the external drive, this will force the game to create a new one on the external.

If you have any questions feel free to ask below. Please brand sure yous clearly reference the part y'all do not understand so I sympathise which step y'all are stuck on 🙂