Most important rule of all first: Always keep a copy of your mods folder before you merged it. Keep it somewhere safe, because you will need it.
You will also need both Sims 4 Studio and S4PE for merging and removing. Note that this version of S4PE is outdated, but for some strange reason this is the only one that still is able to remove packages from a merged file for me. For the newer version, see here, but I can’t guarantee that the new one is able to remove packages. If you end up with an error, please download the outdated version!
1. Open up Sims 4 Studio. Find the tab that says Tools, click it, and then click Merge Packages. A little screen will pop up.
2. Go to your mods folder and find the files you want to merge. A rule I stick to, is not to merge more than 250MB in one merged file. I don’t even know if this really makes the difference, but I like to keep all my merged packages around that number. Drag the files you want to merge to the little screen that popped up, or press add and find the files via browsing.
3. Press merge, fill out a name (I name mine after the categories they are from, so Clothing, Hair etc. etc) and wait for the file to merge. Repeat this step until you have everything merged. (Mine look like this)
4. After you are done merging, move the mods folder with the separated packages to a safe place and keep it there. How do you find the CC you used on a Sim or in a house with Sims Tray Importer? Merged files don’t show up well, so you have absolutely no idea what’s what, so when you need to find a certain piece of CC, swap out your merged mod folder for your separated one and everything will show up right in the Tray Importer!
Now, how does one remove a package you no longer want in your merged folder? Sometimes you no longer want a certain item in your game, or you need to swap it out for an updated version of the package. This is where your separated mod folder is important.
1. Find the merged file where the item is you want to remove. For this example I’m using the merged file with my own CC. Double click the file, and when your PC asks you what program you want to use to open the file with, pick s4pe.
2. With all these numbers and things you probably have no idea what it is you’re exactly looking for. Fortunately there’s an easy way of finding the package you want to remove. Click Resource in the top bar, then go to Import and after that From package. Browse through your separated mods folder and find the package you need to remove (you can also do multiple packages at the time if you want to remove more than one!). Open it. A little box pops up with some settings. Make sure you have Replace duplicates, Compress and Use resource name ticked on. Press Import and say No when s4pe asks if you want to Auto-Save.
5. The next thing you want to do is press the little tab called Chunkoffset. Press it once - or twice - until the files named 0xFFFFFFFF are on top. This is the package you want to remove.
6. Simply click the first file, scroll all the way down until you reach the last 0xFFFFFFFF and press Shift+Click to select all the packages with that name. Right click, press Deleted. Then, go to File, Save and exit the program. You have now removed the package from your merged file!
7. Now, say you want to add another file to your merged package because you forgot something or there’s enough space left to add more packages. Simply open up Sims 4 Studio again and repeat the steps with merging packages, except you now drag the merged package + the files you want to add to the little box. Save it somewhere different than the place the merged package is saved, otherwise it will be unable to merge.
Some other tips for speeding up your game: If you have an external hard drive, try and move as many files from your PC to that drive. I, for example, had over 40GB worth of photos on my laptop, that I barely looked at, but they were still there. I cleaned out my PC as much as I could, and ended up moving over 100GB worth of files to my external hard drive. It opens up a lot of space and really makes your computer run smoother.
Rename your files. This nifty tool is called Bulk Rename Utility. What does it do? It makes it super easy to rename your files by removing any kind of symbol or letter you want gone. Want to remove all brackets, spaces or dashes from the packages in your mods folder? Fill in the symbol (one at a time), select the files you want renamed and press rename. The tool automatically removes all the symbols from the selected packages. Repeat with every other symbol or space you want deleted.
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