Right, I know there's a tool called CTU, but I've tried it and it comes up with unhandled exception errors and only seems to show clothing from the base game. So it doesn't really work for me.

Basically I just want to recategorize some of the clothing, especially stuff from The Sims 3 Store which is often lazily categorized such as pirate boots in the swimwear section, meaning half my Sims have pirate boots instead of bare foot when they go swimming which is stupid.

Things like that I just want to recategorize to my own liking. Is there any other simple way I can do this? It was pretty simple to do in The Sims 2 with SimPE but I can't find out how to do it with The Sims 3. :\

Ok, I'll split this into two sections:

To add categories to EA stuff, and add/remove categories to/from CC stuff: CTU is the easiest tool to do this with, so do make sure that you've got the right version of .NET installed and so on - usually the reasons for it breaking are very simple installation mistakes.

If you can get CTU working, and it's CC you want to recategorise (including Store stuff), then open the .package file in CTU - you will have to extract the .package first, if it's .sims3pack content such as Store stuff, no matter which tool you use - go to the Part Category tab, tick boxes, Commit and Save.

If you can't get CTU to work, download S3PE, and open the .package file in S3PE instead. Tick "Names" and "Tags" at the bottom of the window, then find the resource with the tag CASP. Select, it click Grid in the bottom of the window, then expend the Clothing Category item in the Grid window. Change the categories however you like, Commit, and Save.

If you want to recategorise EA stuff, you can either do it as above using CTU and S3PE (for instructions on finding the files to edit with S3PE, or EP files to edit with S3PE/CTU, see here; skip the changing the Instance step, and you can of course edit the final file in S3PE or TSRW rather than CTU); or you can use just TSRW. If you use TSRW, remember that you will be making a new item, so you'll want to untick the original categories in order to avoid duplicates.

To remove categories from EA stuff:
You'll have to use the method in the tutorial I linked to above, with S3PE or CTU. You won't be able to do this with TSRW. Otherwise, the method is the same.

I have been looking for an answer for 15 hours straight. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! You're a life saver! :lovestruc

*for those who want to know, I used S3PE because I have Windows 7 and CTU will not work on it unless you do a whole lot of stuff which i don't know how to do. here is the link to those who want S3PE http://www.den.simlogical.com/denfo...php?topic=189.0

You just download the first one under "downloands" if you are like me and have windows

So happy!

I tried this, but the "Save" option is greyed out, does anyone know what I can do? Any help I've found online is years old.

as far as i see only quick tipps for recategorizing with S3PE and CTU but i found S3OC much easier for this single purpose.
i simply open the package with => s3oc and then click on the file (on the left side) click on clone or fix and then check the flags i want / uncheck the flags i dont want and than when all changes are made click on the left side Start. the package is also compressiorized then (by default enable compression is checked as far as i remember
thats what i do. its easy. fast and works.