Sims 3 Tech Support: How To Back Up Sims 3 Files
Back when I was playing The Sims (the first one), it never occurred to me to see if there was a way to back up my files. If I encountered a major problem with the game, I had to try and work around it as best I could. If I couldn't work around it, then I had to completely uninstall and reinstall the game.
The third time I did this was the last time I played The Sims. Every time you uninstall the game, you lose all of your gameplay history. I had a Sim (Bob Newbie) who was over 100 days old, which was a lot back then. And when I reinstalled the game, he was right back to being 1 day old! I couldn't take it, and I quit playing.
Don't let this happen to you!
You do not have to uninstall the entire game if you have a problem. Instead, you can create backups. These are a sort of snapshot of your game on that day. Then if you have a problem, you can restore from that backup, and basically travel back in time to that day. Losing a month or two of gameplay is a lot better than losing all of it, right?!
I'm sorry these are Windows-only instructions. I don't have a Mac, so I don't know the exact steps! But the overall concept is the same.
How To Back Up Your Files
1. Create a folder to store your backups: Right-click on your desktop and choose New -> Folder. Name this folder "Sims 3 Backups".
2. Go to your game files: Click the Start (bottom left) button, then click Documents. Double-click to open the "Electronic Arts" folder.
3. Right-click on the folder name "The Sims 3" and choose "Copy."
4. Go to your Desktop. Double-click to open your "Sims 3 Backups" folder. Right-click in the middle and choose "Paste."
It will take a little while for all that gameplay stuff to be copied over! Even on a fast computer, this can take several minutes.
How To Restore From Backup
1. Go to your Desktop. Double-click to open your "Sims 3 Backups" folder. Right-click on the "The Sims 3" folder and choose "Rename." Rename this folder to "Sims 3 - Old."
2. Go through the steps above to back up your files. This way if something goes wrong, you can always put back the broken files!
3. Double-click to open your "Sims 3 - Old" folder. Hit Ctrl-A to select all, then Ctrl-C to copy all.
4. Go to your game files: Click the Start (bottom left) button, then click Documents. Double-click to open the "Electronic Arts" folder, then double-click to open the "The Sims 3" folder.
5. Hit Ctrl-V to paste in your old files. When it asks you if you want to overwrite files, tick the box for "Do this for all current items" and click Yes. (On Vista, tick the box that says "Do this for the next N conflicts" and click the first option, "Copy and Replace.")
It will take a few minutes to copy everything back. Once you have copied your old files into your Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 folder, you will have "reset the clock back" to the time you took your backup.