Hi
I am going to reorganise my Downloads folder which as usual is getting out of hand. I am going to rename some of the folders and I read somewhere that there are some characters that it is best not to use. Why is this and what are they. Also if I have folders inside of folders does the game still read them. I downloaded some clothes but they havent shown up in the game and I wondered if this is why. Any advice on how else to sort out my folder would be great.

Many people have different methods to sort things out. As long as it is comprehensive to you. Personally, I organise things in this way, for the majority of the stuff:

Downloads>Build>Creator>Set
Downloads>Buy>Creator>Set
Downloads>DR_Clothes>Creator>Set

(DR being my shorthand for default replacement.)

Or sometimes it's useful to organise by website, or by category...

Downloads>Buy>Website>Creator's name + Set name
Downloads>Buy>Kitchen>Creator's name + Set name

Which ever feels more intuitive to you. I recommend to pick a method and stick to it. It might take a long time to organise but it's worth it. I've got around 5GB and can find things pretty easily.

Be careful about file name lengths, if it exceeds a certain amount of characters, the game might not read it. I use something called Bulk Rename Utility, it can rename lots of file in one go. Keep them short but have enough of a description for *you* to understand it. For instance, I might delete the name of the creator on each package file, because the name is already on the folder's name. I don't need that twice! Also another tip to boost loading speeds, remove special characters like {}()[] and spaces. I use _ and - instead of spaces. It speeds things up.

That's all I've got for now, if you want to know more, ask away! :D

Special characters will slow your loading time as the game pauses as it figures out what each one is as it reads your folders. If you only have a small amount, say a thousand files you might not not notice a difference, but if you have a lot, say over 10Gigs you should notice shorter loading times. Special charters also includes gaps. If you Google bulk rename utility you can use that on chunks of folders at a time. So any folder that go [creators name] Female simmer dress is full of special characters, in both the brackets and gaps. Instead rename something like that to Creator_AF_SummerDress. Or put the creator last or not at all. You might find the files have the creators name anyway. Really long one saying things like (textures from this person, shoe swapped by this other person, secret Santa gift for X) Just rename the whole thing. You can rename folders and files.

Going deep with your sub folders will also slow down loading, so it's best to spread them out. For clothes mine are spread out as Clothes>AF, Clothes>AM, Clothes>CF and so on. Any more then 3 deep will slow down loading. It all depends on your computer + how many downloads you have if this is a problem or not.

Group them best how you will remember them. I go by items not creators unless the creator is well known and I have a ton of there stuff, like fanseelamb. If the folder length isn't too long I might add the creators name, other times I add an abbreviation of their name or the site. Most of my downloads from here have the folder ending in _MTS.

What clothes did you download? Make sure you have the mesh and the recolours and some require that you have a sp or ep. For example, recoloured H&M clothes need you to have the H&M SP..

Mosf the clothes I downloaded were default replacements so the mesh should already be there I think.

Not all default replacements use the same mesh as the original, so you might want to check the site(s) you got the default replacements from and see if you need a mesh.

As far as the original question, organize things in the way that makes sense to you. For example, a lot of people will tell you to organize things by creator's name or the site you got the item from, but that doesn't work for me at all. I can't remember who made it or where it's from; that's why I have a WCIF and a ton of bookmarks. What makes sense to me is to arrange things by where they are in the catalog. Have a look at my WCIF, which is laid out roughly the same as my Downloads folder: http://esmeiolanthe.livejournal.com/118800.html

The purpose of any organizational system is to be able to find what you want when you want it, with no confusion, delay, or losing things. Set things up in a way that will help you do that, based on what you know about how your brain works. After all, nobody knows you better than you.

Thanks for all your advice. I have looked at your journal and think I will be downloading some more stuff. You have it organised well.

Anything outside the regular keyboard set really and spaces. However, I have a feeling it affects lower end machines more. I have a new (4 months) machine which is quite high spec (actually a lot higher spec for TS2 than it needs to be). When I tried changing the characters it slowed my loading by about ... 30 seconds to a minute but then my machine only takes 2 minutes to load up the game anyway. People usually have hissy fits and disagree with me over this but I tested it - several times - and the results did not vary. I went back to my old DLs folder because I couldn't be arsed changing stuff just for the sake of it. So what I'm saying is YMMV and it might not make that big a difference.


It should read folders inside folders (I have an incredibly arcane folder system with folders within folders within folders and the machine/game reads them just fine). However, some people do have trouble with this and general best practice I think is thought to be not to sub-folder too deep - or in fact probably as little as possible. If it were me over again, I think I'd avoid the arcane system a second time around and go for something simpler.

I usually organize by website>creator name> set

Or Everything by room> room> set