Twitter

Facebook

Patreon

Donate

Gameplay Overhaul Mod

Burglars, Dine Out, Gardening improvements and more! Support my project to improve The Sims 4's gameplay on Patreon.

The Sims 4 Gallery Guide

How To's, Using the Gallery for Sims and Homes

The Sims 4 Gallery lets you Download and share Sims, Homes, Lots, and Rooms with the Sims Community

What is the Gallery?
The Sims 4 Gallery brilliantly integrates with Sims 4 and allows players to browse and download free content created by fellow Simmers. Households (and single Sims), Houses, Lots, and Rooms may be downloaded and added to your library where you can then place or use them in your game. This is a great feature that can easily be accessed at any time by pressing F4 on your keyboard. This Guide will teach you the basics of using the Gallery and provide how-to information that may answer any questions you may have about utilizing its features.

The Sims 4 Gallery Patch

Be Aware. The Gallery just changed - some information on this page may be outdated. I'll work on updating it later. The Sims Team introduced a new patch on July 31, 2018 that reorganized and massively improved the Gallery and its interaction with gameplay. See the video linked in the above header, or view it below, to learn about these new functions. If you like my content, subscribe and consider supporting us on Patreon using the link in the video's description.

Gallery How-To's - Placing Sims and Houses on New Game

The Community and My Library tabs are the main areas to explore in the Gallery

Basic Navigation
There are two main tabs to note when you first open the Gallery. Community is where you will see all items available for download, while My Library are your own creations and downloads from the Gallery. The menus in each of these categories are simple to navigate. It is a very friendly system for players who are not very good with computers.

Community
This is where you will find Sims, Lots (Houses/other), and Rooms you can download. Note that when you click an item, you have the option to Favorite it. This is akin to a 'Like' button and supports the creator. The Favorite button helps players sort to find the good stuff. Only Sims you've actually downloaded will be added to your Library.

My Library
The My Library tab is where you will find all Sims, Rooms, and Homes you've created yourself or downloaded from the Gallery. Rooms and Houses are special cases, but we will get to that later. You can sort your library using the top menu, in order to see those created by you, Maxis, or other players. You can select an item to share it from here. Share your best creations so that they can be enjoyed by other Simmers!

Aging up Kids' Account to Adult
For children under 14, EA has a special type of account that is parentally supervised. If you started with a young person's account, which has filtered out most online features including the Gallery, you can 'Age up' the account to be a full-access account. See here for help on doing so

From 'My Library', click this with a Sim or Household selected to upload them to the Gallery

How to Share a Sim
To upload your own creations to the Gallery, head to the My Library tab and select the little cloud icon that appears in the bottom left when you click a Sim. This will prompt you to fill in the extra information in the description box for your fellow Simmers, all of whom will be able to download your creation should they like it (or find it!). Write a description and use #hashtags (the pound is important) separated by spaces to provide key words that other players can use to find your items.

For example, you may use the hashtag #celebrity to denote that a Sim you've made is a celebrity or #noCC for Sims without custom content. The hashtag #carlsguide is used by our Forum members to help them find one another's creations. You can remove an item from the gallery by clicking the cloud once it's already been shared. Also, you can share a creation on Facebook once it's been shared.

Finding things in the Gallery
At the top right, from the Community tab, you have a few search options. The default is just to let you search for specific keywords. You can select the drop-down box to change it to search for Hashtags or Origin IDs. You don't have to use the # when searching for a hashtag. Try celebrity to see a lot of different celebrities. Other things, like blonde or triplets may let you find specific things. Origin ID is when you know a person's Origin ID (a friend) so that you can see everything they've created.

On the left, depending on the category you've chosen (Households, Lots, Rooms) you can also select different parameters to let you browse. Click Advanced to see more options to let you narrow it down.

Note on CC (Custom Content) in Gallery Downloads
Sims which contain CC may appear different when downloaded, because the content won't normally come along with the download. It is the same as for not owning an Expansion - the hair/clothing you do not have will be replaced with an EA default. This means if you don't want any items brought along, it's safe to download from the Gallery. On the flip side, if a person wants a Sim to look exactly as depicted, the creator should take the time to list the exact CC objects that were used, along with where to download them. The #nocc hashtag is frequently used to help locate Sims that do not require any extra downloads in order to get the intended look.

While in Create-a-Sim, you can select a Sim from the Gallery to help you make your Household.

Use a Sim from the Gallery or Your Library
There is a Randomize from Gallery button to get a random Sim of a specific gender, located just under the Sim. The button looks like a stack of photos. However, let's assume you want to find your perfect Sim. Press F4 to open the Sims 4 Gallery from any screen, then select 'Community' noting there's no 'Sim' category in the Gallery but rather 'Household'. This is where you'll find the thousands of Sims, including celebrities, that other players have created. I strongly suggest you click 'Advanced' on the left while within the Household category to let you narrow down choices to the appropriate household size you're looking to download, from 1 Sim to 7-8 Sims for big families. It's easy to download or favorite the item from there.

If you've previously downloaded the Sim, they'll be in your Library which is accessed through the Gallery, of course. So, let's assume you're in Create-a-Sim starting a new game and want to pick and start a new game with a Sim from the Gallery or your own Library:

• 1. Click the +Add a Sim icon in the lower left of Create-a-Sim and pick, "Add from Gallery"
• 2. Browse community shares or your own library to find the Sim(s) you want, then click them. If you see a Sim you want among a larger household and you want only that Sim, you can download them anyway and delete those you don't want (see below). Once you've picked a household, you can either:
• A. Save to your Library (bottom left). This lets you place them later, when you're in CAS or on the Neighborhood screen (Manage Worlds)
• B. Place Household (bottom right) - if done from CAS you will add that household to the one you're creating in Create-a-Sim. You can then 'Merge' to add them in, or 'Replace' to erase the Sim you were given at first with the one you just downloaded. If you do this from the Manage Worlds screen, you can pick a house to move the family into.
• 3. The Sim should then be in CAS, where you can change their Traits, Aspiration and appearance however you like.
• 4. Resume play as usual!

Tip: Delete Sims you Don't Want
If you download more than one Sim in a single Household package, you can delete those you don't want. In a cruel example, you could search 'triplets' to find a family with triplets, then create your own parent Sim, hover over the parents' portraits in CAS and delete them. Now your Sim has three kids to raise.

So let's look at the process if you want to then give them a home from the Gallery.

Placing Homes from the Gallery
This is how you place lots whether for a new family or just to edit your own. Even with a newly created Sim family placed on a blank lot, you can get a house from the gallery for them to call home. Just after the Sims are placed, save your game then press ESC and go to Manage Worlds. You can also do this at any time to add homes to the world, or even delete entire lots to make room for new homes for a fresh look. If you need simple instructions for placing a lot from a game pack you've downloaded, see this tutorial.

• 1. From Manage Worlds, find a lot you want to place a home on. Hover over it to see the size. Any home you download must not exceed that size, as it just won't fit.
• 2. Go to the Gallery (F4) and Select Lots, then Advanced on the left.

• 3. Advanced lets you narrow things down. At the far bottom, you want Residential in this case. Pick a price range based on your Sims' money (unless cheating, see below!) and Lot Size (at least as big as the one you want to place - you could put a cottage on a lot size meant for a mansion).

• 4. Pick the home you want, then select Place Lot in the bottom right. You can also just download it to add to your library where you can use it later in the same way, just without finding it again. Once you pick 'Place Lot' you will be taken back to the world, where you will select a spot to put the home.

• 5. If you want to give new Sims a home, select the lot they live on (whether you've built anything or not) and then choose either to furnish the home (all objects from buy mode) or unfurnished, which is just the basic stuff. You can also pick if they will keep or sell their belongings. Kept belongings are found in the Household Inventory (F2, bottom left).

• 6. Now you will see the house on the lot. You can click the move button (green) to move the house or the whole lot. Click on the house, then the 4-way cross to drag it around. You can also pick it and then rotate with the curvy arrows. This lets you orient the house or lot however you like. I recommend you move lot, because otherwise terrain paint like sidewalks will stay where it was originally placed. So long as nothing is sticking outside the boundaries, the house can be placed there.


Using Move Lot will move the house along with any decorations the lot's builder has placed. Move house will leave the landscaping in the default spot, and may look silly. If the lot has 0 landscaping, this doesn't matter. Plus you can line things up nicely.



See what I mean? This house is ready to live in, and there is a nice yard out back and to the left.

From there, F1 will return you to the world map. You can go back to the neighborhood you were playing in, pick the house, and the play button to resume your game.

Cheating to Get a Home - Free Real Estate
If you want your Sims to live in a nicer home that you can't afford yet, you can use Money Cheats or the Free Real Estate cheat: Do this from Manage Worlds before you go to the gallery. Press Control + Shift +C then type freerealestate on. This will make all homes free, so newly created Sims can live in a mansion. A way to use Gallery homes without cheating is to either stay within your Sim's budget by using the pricing selectors from the Gallery so that you can afford it, or else placing the new home on a different lot, playing and saving up Simoleans to move the old fashioned way!

Rooms and Homes - Special Instructions

Rooms are dealt with differently as far as placement. Placing a home is covered above, and the process is the same regardless of whether you're starting a new game or not. You can do it at any time through Manage Worlds. Placing Rooms on the other hand, can be done by opening the Gallery while you are playing normally and in Build/Buy Mode (F2). Go to Community > Rooms > and select a Room type under Advanced. You must have sufficient funds to place a room. The Free Real Estate cheat doesn't work, so you can either make sure you can afford it or use a money cheat.

Sharing Rooms and Lots is done through Build/Buy mode using this button.

Sharing Homes and Rooms
Sharing Homes and Rooms is again different from Sims. You can do this while in Build Mode (F3). If you want to share the whole house, click the button pictured above to save it to your library where you can then access the gallery, go to My Library and click the home to share it, providing a description and hashtags to help people find it. Sharing a room requires you to select one from build mode, or else the button won't light up. Same process. Save to your library, then go to the Gallery and share it. Nice and easy.

Further Reading
Other articles that may interest you:

• Controls - Sims 4 Game Controls
• Moving Sims - Managing Households in The Sims 4
• Rotational Play - Playing More than one Household
• The Sims 4 Cheats - Building, Buy Mode, Money, and Testing Cheats

How You Can Support The Site and Channel

If you like my sites and Youtube Channel, consider supporting me on Patreon to help me to continue.

Back to The Top

Twitter

Facebook

Patreon

Donate

Gameplay Overhaul Mod

Burglars, Dine Out, Gardening improvements and more! Support my project to improve The Sims 4's gameplay on Patreon.

Check Out My Youtube Channel!

We now have a Youtube Channel with over 50 guides in video format to go along with the huge site I've already created. Check it out and consider subscribing if you like my style.