My old folder had heaps of old junk, this one is all new things. That is one of the good things about starting a new download folder.

I want my neighbourhood to be like a little city. My 9 GB of downloads includes hood deco (converted buildings from TS3), clutter to make homes look lived in and unique, nice furniture for the wealthy, run down furniture for the poor, and other things in between, CC for dive bars, nicer nightclubs, a police station, hospital...

Purgatory?

I have, of course, done the download spree thing more than once (who does not enjoy free shopping? ) It is just that, if it has sat in my downloads folder through a week's play, or the building of 5 lots, the chances of using it becomes non-existent, so - out it goes. I have more than enough space on my hard drive - there is still 300 GB available - but I am kind of a impatient player, and do not want to sort through a lot of stuff if I can help it (time plays a role too, of course). I also am not a collection folder type of person, since I don't always use the stuff that is grouped into a collection together. I do have a huge downloads folder on my other drive where I keep stuff that I might want to use in future, but since it has also sat there for months now, it will probably be deleted soon.

see that's the way to do it. I've just never really been into the organizing side of simming. downloading has always been a means to an end. Coming back and deleting stuff after i've downloaded it, making sure its all in order, too tedious. but i'm also not willing to do without, so here I am with a disaster of a downloads folder to be straightened out. thought for the moment the last part is coming along nicely.

I love all my converted stuff from TS3, I would never get rid of them. Even if I'm not using some of them at the moment, the day will come.

Btw OP, you are very patient. I just don't care that much because I don't get many issues other than slow loading times. I could never start a new Downloads folder without accidently corrupting my neighborhoods.

3t2 conversions are my weakness. 4t2 (build/buy) conversions are becoming a new weakness.

Yes, purgatory, haha. I renamed the folder after I had to hunt down a set that caused my neighborhood to crash every time a male sim aged up.

Eugh I hate organising my downloads folder. I can't do it, I forget where stuff comes from and ones with numbers for names or names like "top [name of creator]" confuse me. Which is why the past few times I've restarted my game, I've gone to the effort of managing everything into folders and subfolders, so I never really have to manage it all at a later date, and I rename clothing that have useless names to make it easier if I ever have a buggy piece of CC.

The best piece of advice I can give to anyone when organising is to use subfolders. I have 6 folders in my downloads: Mods, Clothing, Genetics, make up (including face paint), objects and build mode. and then folders you know you'll put a lot in, make more specific - such as that I download quite a lot of clothing so I have 8 subfolders in clothing: Baby, Toddler, Child, Teen Female, Teen Male, Adult Female, Adult Male, Elder. - Note that teens and adults get a different folder based on gender, because I download a lot of clothing for them so it's easier to sort through. The others don't need another folder because I don't download that much, and I only really download everyday, so I don't require subcategories like 'formal' 'swimming' etc like other users do.

I just name my folders after the creator - and, sometimes, the site. So my downloads folder is more like : All about Style, Adele, Cat of EG, Honeywell, iCad, etc. etc. In those I will have subfolders if necessary: All About Style - Elder Male, Elder Female, Adult male, Adult Female, Teen male, Teen female, etc. etc. etc. If I have too many files from a creator it becomes Michelle a, Michelle b, Michelle c, etc. Works for me.

Well I've had this download folder almost from the beginning. And this is my second time having this problem. The last time I was too ignorant of Sims 2 to understand that the problem was me overworking my machine because of too much CC. So my choices are either:

• all new dl folder
• play sims 3 or 4
• a maxis game
• clean up the existing folder
• or don't play
• upgrade the comp

I decided cleaning it up was the best option. I can't manage an upgrade for at least 6 months and the CC folder would still be a mess. This way I'll have a nice orderly dl folder and my computer upgrade together, best of both worlds.

Update on the organizing

So I organized everything into basic folders Build, Buy, CAS, etc....with various subfolders. For the moment I have multiples of these folders which is fine. I broke the CC up into 4 chunks about 2-5GB a piece. Right now I'm loading the game and using a test neighborhood to go through all the CC and figure out what i want to dump and what I want to keep. Hacks, mods and defaults will be in play for the entire test since they are my minimally required content.

So I started this project with 19.25 GB. Before I made this thread I managed to shed 1GB just cleaning up everything I could identify as stuff I didn't want. I'm now down to about 16.50 GB. I think the sweet spot is going to be somewhere between 12-15GB, I'm going to aim for the smallest number I can be happy with. I'm prolly gonna go with the sub-catagories as opposed to multiple sub-folders when I finish up seems like the simplest system possible.

I must admit something that's pretty ultra. I had a bunch of rar files hanging around my dl folder that just shouldn't have been there. I was saving them because if the content becomes corrupted its the easiest way to replace it, but its absurd to have it just hanging around in my dl folder. the good news though is that with all the rar, zip, sims 2 packs out I should have room for some new content without having to pic and choose between things I don't want to give up.

Also with crashing beware high polly cc, like some hairs and jewelry. There is jewelry around that has like 20,000 polys, that alone on a computer puffing could crash a lot if a walkby came along wearing that.

good to know any idea how to check the poly count on jewelry or hair for that matter?

It is good practise for modders to state the poly count on their download pages. If the item is already on your computer, there is a method of finding out through Milkshape or SimPE.

You can check it on SimPE.
http://modthesims.info/t/227588

update. so I started the slog through the worst of the offenders last night. buildmode leftovers. This is a folder just full of random CC from different lots that I had downloaded. It wasn't as bad as I'd thought. Its mostly clutter. I loaded the game, looked through my catalog and jotted down names and descriptions of things I didn't want as i went. most of them could be found by name in my downloads folder and I cleaned half the furniture and deco items. the real drawback it eliminating things I do want or sort of want to get me into the sweet spot. but I continue persevering through the tedium of it all knowing that in the end I shall be well rewarded.

I've just watched a show "Hoarding: Buried Alive" on TLC. How people accumulate heaps of junk over the years and end up with requiring counseling and help to clean out their homes. Well, a thought crossed my mind if all our Sims CC weren't computer files but real stuff, a lot of Sims players would meet on that TV show. Myself included.

Staying on topic, I once deleted everything and started anew, it was much easier and time consuming than trying to sort it all out. It was when I was saving CC simply into Downloads folder. My routine was: download stuff, unzip it, move the content into Downloads folder. That's it.
Now I have everything divided into sub-folders, used to be sorted out by creators and websites, now it's more how it looks like in Buy Mode and Build mode, with mods, defaults are separated. Though it differs slightly for each saved game, since I play different themes and each require certain stuff.

I considered that, but I'm reducing and reorganizing from a starting point of 20 gigs of CC. I have over 50 households in three neighborhoods, not to mention a number of custom community lots. If I simply delete my existing downloads folder that means redecorating every house and lot, making over every sim and hours fixing all their broken genetics in SimPE. Now I am gonna end up doing some of that anyway, but I'd rather do it with surgical precision than simply gutting my game. Surprisingly enough its turning out to be easier than expected.

I liked the method of subcategories presented on the first page. Its tedious as hell, but not difficult. Once I started delving into it most of the CC in my game was already named in such a way that I could either rename the folder it was in appropriately or quickly look it up in my game. Since i am working in chunks its easy enough to load the game and look up more info or examine an item as I go.

After a week I have shed far more content than I expected and I am now down to about 12 gigs. Thus far most of it has been stuff that I didn't even really use. Now I did pull that build mode leftovers folder out and set it to the side. It had over 6,000 files of random CC from all over the community and I just can't....But I do still have most of the lots. I'll just reinstall them one at a time carefully sorting all the CC with the Clean Installer beforehand and then reexamining it in game after.

If there is something in that leftovers folder that I really, really need its an easy matter to put it back in my downloads folder, make a new lot, put the things from the catalog that I need on the lot package the new lot, remove the folder, install the new lot and snag my CC.

I'm a bit of a hoarder of household 'junk' like books, craft stuff and things. No where near those shows, but yes the mess on my computer reflects my clutter.

Update 10/22/15

after 3 weeks of diligent work I have cut my downloads folder in half and can now play. The organization is in progress, but slowly coming along. I did end up doing the subcategories, which I think is going to be ideal because once everything is in subcategories its actually an easy system to maintain.

I've got an extra 2 gigs of content that I am slowly weeding through to integrate back into my downloads folder and I am also making decisions about how much clutter I will allow in my game. I think my game is playable at 15 gigs, but 10 gigs loads so much faster I don't think I want to go over that number. It a leaner game than I am used to, but its worth it especially with me getting ready to go back to work full time.

Thanks everybody for taking the time to share their organization methods it has been really helpful. Honestly I don't think I could have gotten this done without you guys. I'd probably just be stuck playing Sims 4.

My game is the same way, I find at 10Gigs is loads quickly (my idea of quickly, apparently some people think 10 minutes is horrendous), but it doesn't slow down a huge lot until I go over 14Gigs, but at around 18-20Gigs it starts crashing randomly. Good job!

I deserve a trophy or a participation reward or something. I've hit 1.04GB! Thanks again, Veranka!