Do you organize your Buy Mode subfolders by creator, or rather by object type?

I wonder this because I read in a thread about how to reduce loading time that @simsample suggested to minimize the levels of subfolders.

My loading time isn't bad, but I would like to have them more organized in case I discover a bug with CC. I guess my questions is related to CC folders in general.

I organize by type/category. My download folders (multiple:Medieval, Beach, Pioneer, Modern) still require a lot of organizing. This is my modern/beach folder which I have yet to separate into beach and modern.

What it is currently up to F, and please ignore my messy misspellings.

I would not make a Buy mode folder and then place many subfolders inside of it as you just made another folder, another step and you want to spread it out as much as you can rather than step. I still have too many steps even without that and while having all buy mod items inside a 'Buy' folder looks tidy, its really just a cupboard shut on a lot of stuff.

Q. How do I organize my Buy Mode subfolders?
A. Chaotically!

This is my Buy Mode folder:


As well as the 14 subfolders, I have 52 files in the Buy Mode folder itself. Some Buy Mode stuff is in other places -- I mean Furniture is really Buy Mode, and the Children folder has some child- oriented Buy Mode stuff in it.

Actually I don't have all that much Buy Mode CC. My big downloading weaknesses are hair and clothing -- most of it very skimpy. My clothing CC is even more chaotic -- for historic reasons most of it's still in my root Downloads folder.

My loading time is only a few seconds on my 18 month old Windows 10 gaming laptop.

I organise all my downloads the same way: using no subfolders whatsoever. I painstakingly rename cc files that I intend to keep instead, so all recolours go with their correct meshes and I have some idea of what each file is. And then I get tired of it all and leave files as they are, without renaming them and get frustrated when I'm looking for them in the downloads folder and can't find them...
I know this sounds a bit counterintuitive, but I played basegame only for so long (which means I couldn't organise things in subfolders) and when I switched to playing with all EP:s I couldn't get the game to read some of the files if they were in subfolders and the loading time of the game increased as well. I'm sure I could have fixed those problems if I'd really tried, but I just don't see the point in spending that extra time and honestly, a messy downloads folder has worked fine for me!

You guys organize your subfolders?

...yyyyeahhhhh i TOTALLY do that

I've got a form of "Buy", then an undercategory that encompasses enough items to warrant its own undercategory (nursery, kitchen, bathroom, etc.), and then the name of the set and/or creator.

Wherever I can, I try to avoid the extra subfolder, especially if it's just a small set or if it's my own items (I try to name my own CC so meshes and recolors appear together, otherwise it bugs me).

I also have my "Buy" categories split into various folders (separate ones in the Downloads folder), so it's "buy_mine", "buy_other", "hospital_mine", "hospital_other" plus a few others (the "mine" is to keep my own CC projects separate so it doesn't get lost among everything else), and a few themed ones I'm planning to sort in a way I can take out when I don't need them (Halloween, wedding, Xmas...).

Basically, I have a system, probably not one that would work for most people, but it works for me.

Yeah I was just joking around, cuz I was surprised people were that organized lol. But I'm impressed how detailed y'all else are. I just dump everything in my downloads folder, and new downloads I just categorize into making a folder with the most recent date. I'm jealous of how awesomely oriented y'all are. I don't know where anything of mine is

All I can say is that in-game, buying anything can be a little tedious for me nowadays since I play at 1080p now and the icons are smaller. I'm always "Where is... such and such?"

I just do it by set or theme.



Same here, it's so annoying

^ One of the reasons I'm working on recategorizing my buy mode items, not just sorting stuff in the Downloads folder. Fixing faraway thumbnails so items are visible, fixing pricing so stuff appears where you want it to be, and putting deco items in proper categories instead of having everything in deco/misc + sculptures is very helpful.

Anything new I'll eventually put in my Downloads folder will be recategorized before it gets anywhere near it, because this is a huge job...

I guess I don't
I like things to be under creator's names - so I actually don't have a buy or a build folder.

A good example of how a tidy looking first level buy folder can really be hiding a mess.

It's not so bad, at least the sets are foldered. My first huge 20 gig download folder back in about 2008 had barely any folders, just a huge mix of files dumped in.

My old folder was subfoldered to the great beyond. It was also a mess of "new from *date*" kind of folders, and had CAS, buy and build all mixed up. I don't know if everything I had in there even showed up, because I had so much and there was a hint of a system without there being any system to the mess, if that makes sense. I've discovered things while cleaning up in there that I only recently either didn't realize wasn't working, or never showed up, or didn't even know I had.

My very first Downloads folder had no subfolders and probably around 10.000 files chucked in. No system to the madness - but that's a long time ago now

It's more about minimising the filepath really- and also being able to manipulate the load order more easily.
For my system, what does impact the loading time is having very long filepaths, so trying to minimise that a bit does help. However, I run from a hard disk drive (not an SSD) so this may not make so much of a difference for others. I try to keep creators' filenames the same (this helps how I play, as I'm always swapping custom content in and out, and I can more easily tell if I already have a mesh that way). So making the folder names more concise and having fewer subfolders works really well. I am like Petro and work best having things under creator name- I can usually remember who made something, so it makes things easier for me to find. I have main folders for Build, Buy, CaNH, CAS, Hacks and Maxis (the Maxis one is for castaway conversions and store stuff) and beneath that creator names and then files. So for example Downloads\Buy\TA539\9sp2_Saarinen_endtable_white.package. Recolours for a mesh always go in the folder of the original mesh creator, so I put recolours of Peggysims hairs in the Peggy folder. I never keep zip files or images in the game files- anything that the game can't use still has to be parsed, so will add to loading time. After changing things, I always make sure to delete cache files, and I also delete the thumbnails folder after removing a lot of catalog items.

I read posts from people who swear that having certain characters in the file name causes increased loading time, but I never found this to be true. In fact, Tashiketh did some tests to demonstrate this (the conversation goes on for a few posts):
https://modthesims.info/showthread....720#post5724720
There are so many variables involved in game loading that it's difficult to eliminate all negative factors. System state (whether your computer is running other processes or services as the game loads), how many other tasks you are running, the condition and free capacity of your hard drive- all of this will have an impact. And the way you work as a person is an important consideration when you are organising files- it's no good for me to have CAS stuff in with mods, or to sort my buy stuff by function for example! I think if you find a way that works for you, it's better than having someone else's superior method! Even if it does take longer to load.

@simsample thanks for clarifying! It already helped me gaining overview by reducing the huge amount of subfolders, so I can delete files easier when searching in Explorer. But sorting hairs by the original creator's meshes sounds like a good idea for me for a future organization project

It always seemed to make more sense to me, and creators usually title their uploads by mesh name too so finding recolours is easier. Whenever I see some great hair recolours, they are usually called 'Wildfire recolours in poppet's palette' or something like that, so when I'm looking in my downloads folder to see if I already have similar colours or not, I can just search for Wildfire and find the folder where the mesh and all of the recolours are, very easily. For this reason, it never made sense to me to sort things by male or female either as then I need to search two folders. But of course, others might read this and think I am mad, so whatever works best for you!

Many hairs are just male or are just female so I do have a folder for them each, but I also have a mixed folder, so umm three? Yeah you make a good point. :D

Interesting how differently people sort their downloads. My biggest subfolders (folders inside Downloads) are for Buyables; there are 12, as Buyable bedroom sets, Buyable bathroom sets. Some of these also contain folders. Have 13 Build folders, as Buyable walls and floors, Buyable doors and windows. These also contain sub-folders. When I go on a download spree for misc things, I put them in a separate, dated folder. That way if I find a problem I'll know where to look. Eventually they get put in the appropriate folder. I also run Clean Installer to find duplicates. If all these subfolders are causing problems...well, that's the best I can come up with.

Probably way more than they need to be, I don't have a "buy" folder because it's one level I don't need with the way I name folders, but I also split things up into far more categories than the buy mode catalogue allows.

I just organize mods and cc by creator which is the easiest method for me

I label my mods by mode. So I have Buy Mode, Build Mode, etc.

How do you find things?

If someone said they liked some random piece of clutter in a picture of yours, how do you remember what creator made it if it doesn't say on it in game? What if the creator is from another country and their name is in German, Korean or Arabic and no English is on the download itself? I grabbed a few items off an Asian site yesterday, I have no clue who the creator is. Some are just Maxis recolours. Or maybe you only download from large creators with large sets with good tool tips and descriptions. My bug bear right now in trying to put together a pioneer type download folder is many older downloads come with the description of 'bowl of fruit' or whatever description maxis wrote on the original item that the creator cloned and simply left. So its no longer a bowl of fruit but a pot plant or a barrel.

I usually sort them by type, except for sets, which I keep together so I can find them