Okay so basically it started with that I emptied the cache files because I was having some trouble a world that was in sims3pack format due to an error message I would get whenever I tried. (and I made sure it was the ones that were safe to delete) and I also deleted my DCBackup files, everything except for ccmerged. I moved them to the trash and I emptied it permanently. After that, it still didnt work and I got the error message again so I tried removing my mods folder from the TS3 folder and it worked to install it. Or well, I thought. After I "installed" the world I put back my mods folder right? As I launched the game and started up the family I was playing at that moment, I got a message saying that some items had to be replaced because they had disappeared from the game or something. I noticed that alot of my sim's makeup had been replaced and the jeans they were wearing had also been replaced. I got really confused, so I entered Create-A-Sim to try editing her, and I noticed ALL my sims3pack custom contents were gone. I exited the game and opened the launcher again and found out that all my sims3packs were downloaded but no longer installed. I removed my mods folder again and selected all the sims3packs and reinstalled them, and it was successful. Launched the game, but they still didnt show up. I went to "installed content" they and they apparently werent listed as installed even though I had installed everything. So then I manually selected them, 5 each, and attempted installing and that showed up in the "Installed Content". I did that until everything was installed and relaunched the game, this time without my mods folder. Then I made a new world, and as I was in Create-A-Sim to make my family, all my sims3pack custom content STILL was gone, as if it gets resetted right when I launch the game?

I'm very frustrated over this, this is why I prefer package files because there's rarely any problems with them but sims3packs are a whole mess tbh. I'm using a Mac btw, if theres maybe any tools for me to convert sims3packs to package files so I can get my cc back without having to use the launcher or if theres a way I can fix this please tell me. I just wanna play the game lmao :/ I'm kinda upset too bc I think its cause I deleted the DCBackup files but multiple people said it was safe and wouldnt do anything except make my sims run a bit faster because they're just backup files from DCCache? So I trusted that but seems like that wasnt right in my case.

Assuming you don't have two different TS3 game folders in play somehow, where you are inadvertently installing content into one but the Launcher is loading up the game to play from a different one, it sounds to me like the one you have is compromised. Or at the very least its DCCache folder is. DCBackup and its contents should have been totally irrelevant, except for the one ccmerged file needing to have stayed in place.

I would suggest pulling your TS3 game folder out from Documents entirely, to the Desktop and rename it even (Macs can be stubborn about continuing to read from a former game folder) thus forcing the game to spawn a new one on its next launch. Back out and begin rebuilding your content store on the new game folder. And yes, keep the mods/package based content away until finished with the sims3packs because in many cases on Macs those interfere with sims3packs getting installed and loaded. The object here would be to get your game folder loaded up with enough store and custom content and installed worlds so that ultimately you can copy your saves from the pulled out folder over to it and hopefully resume play.

It could actually take a few tries before you get a properly working game folder again. To put it bluntly, TS3 for Mac is a mess (sorry to say).

So basically remove the game folder from Documents, launch the game again so a new one spawns, then put all my custom content back in Downloads folder, my saves back into the new saves folder etc? (Just had to see if I got you right bc english is not my first language)

And when I do all this what about my Store content? Because I dont have any problems with my store content, it stays installed and also the sims I have downloaded from the exchange. (Also sorry for the late-ish reply)

In your DCCache folder, the dbc files are your installed sims3pack custom content. The ebc files are your store content.

Once you have a new game folder, you should be able to copy all of your ebc files from the old one to the new one, as well as your installed worlds, then try to install some sims3packs and see if that works out better. Other things like installed sims, mods, package based content, and game saves you might want to worry about at the end of all this. The worst thing that should happen is that the new game folder doesn't help matters and you should always be able to put the older one back in play if necessary.

Okay, I think I got it now. Thank you! I'll try this out and see if it works (hopefully)

It didn't work, I'm gonna try a few more times and see if it works then since you said it could take a few tries. But one thing did happen, I managed to install some sims (as in they showed up in the Installed Content) but there's only a few of them. that show up in-game, and they don't have the custom content. It just gets replaced with clothes/hair/skin etc from the game. Not really sure what thats all about

Update, I managed to fix things-ish by deleting every .dbc file in DCCache and everything except ccmerged in DCBackup (this time just removing them from their folders instead of permanently trashing) and redownloaded my cc. Alot of my sims3pack cc comes from sims i downloaded off The Exchange (bc i'm too lazy to look for cc individually lol) so after I reinstalled the sims and two worlds (I started out with them to test and was planning to continue on furniture later) all the cc that were attached to those sims showed up all 1 by 1 in the installed content section. Thats also what I saw before my issue started (which didnt happen when I was struggling with installing stuff) and the worlds were also marked as installed. I closed the launcher and reopened it again before launching the game, and everything still shows up as installed so I was so happy because I thought I really had fixed it, but there's still a problem: whenever I launch the game, my custom content doesn't show up in game. Even though it says its installed. Which is a little different from my previous issue where the case was everything uninstalled itself whenever I closed the launcher, but now everything does show up as installed even after the launcher is closed, its just that nothing shows up in-game, except for store content and package files. This is so frustrating lmfao :/

That sounds like an improvement, but it really isn't. Now you have your Launcher essentially lying to you -- telling you that your sims3pack based CC wherever it came from is indeed installed but it's not loading when the game starts up.

Maybe I wasn't being very clear about the clean folder method. What I meant to do was, working with a freshly spawned entire TS3 user game folder in Documents, try installing a small number of sims3pack CC using the Launcher. I mean, like five items. But not by moving the dbc files from the original DCCache back in. Does that work out okay? If so, then try five or maybe ten more. If not, then we are kind of back where we started.

How about if we leave out the Exchange based sims and what is attached to them for now? I don't care how much you like them or how lazy you are (just for the moment, I mean), but if this is where the problem is coming from, let's at least see if you can get the Launcher to do what it's really supposed to do with some just plain standalone CC? The Exchange is a minefield of sims (and lots) carrying what we call "bad" or malformed CC, often enough unbeknownst to the uploader and it's possible some of this is where the problem is starting.

I removed my current TS3 folder and opened the launcher again so a brand new one would spawn, then I put three sims3packs into the Downloads folder. A hair, a type of blush and a world. (everything in total being no more than 110 MB) I installed them through the launcher and they showed up in the downloads section + the installed content one. I closed the launcher and reopened it and everything was still in its place. I then went to start up the game, but theres still nothing still shows up :/

If this helps, both the hair and the blush were downloaded off TheSimsResource (I'm pretty sure, cause both the artists are quite known there) and the world I tried downloading is called "E-Seoul" but I think I found it at mysims3blog.

GOOD NEWS (ish)! I put back my old folder (not the first one but the one that got added after I removed the folder I had when my problem started) and for some reason after I checked and unchecked the "run without custom content" and played the game, everything in my installed content bar showed up in-game! These are cc attached to the sims I have downloaded + two worlds bc they're the only ones I have in my download folder at the moment. But there's still a little problem, not ALL of my custom content is back. There's just some of it that shows up, I can tell not all my hairs and not all my clothes are there (most of my makeup is though) but thats weird because the cc from the sims I downloaded ALL showed up before this entire problem started but now there's just some of it. All my sims are installed according to the launcher though, so its still kinda weird. But if there's any way I can extract the cc from the sim and download it individually (because if I remember right I think I heard there was a tool that can do it but I'm not sure) then that'd be helpful. But yeah, so far I've at least gotten SOME custom content to show up which is good

The tool I believe you're referring to is Delphy's Sims 3 Pack Multi-Extracter. I would also recommend using CUSTARD Sims3pack Cleaner to check if the sims3pack contains any corrupt CC first.

The OP may have difficulty running those tools as they require Windows. There are several ways to get Windows apps to run on OS X, but I never had much success with these in particular and always had to shift the game files to a PC and back again when I played the Mac version of the game before I gave up on it and switched over to Windows entirely for TS3.

Yes! Thats the tool I was looking for. I already have it, I used it a few days ago to extract a few s3ps to package files and it worked well I'm wondering though, with a sim that has a sims3pack, do I just put them all in my folder and then extract them? Cause thats what I did, and a bunch of those package files with loads of weird numbers and letters came up in the folder I extracted them to. I had the rename files on save thing checked but it made the names weird. The names dont bother me though but I'm just wondering if its supposed to be like that and if it means I've removed the cc right and that it'll show up in game? (There's like 82 files too so maybe thats all the cc? I'll definitely have to merge them though)

Yes, one of the files is the sim, and the rest is CC. Unfortunately the "Rename on extraction" option can only handle it if there is a single package in the sim3pack. You get alphabet soup if there were more files in the Sims3pack.

I would use CUSTARD to look at the sims3pack before extracting, because 82 files sounds like a lot, and you may not want all of it. But yes, once you're happy with the contents of the Sims3pack, you extract a sim the same way as anything else. Then the sim itself goes into Saved Sims, and the rest go into Mods/Packages.