Vanishing Space in MO 2

[Guest]

**Feel free to skip to question in the second paragraph** I am a new modder and not exactly sure how files read. When I originally partitioned my drive I made it *slightly* too small. I cant re partition it without losing all my current data, so I try to be more space conscious. Recently, I "removed mods" several mods, then when my game had problems I tried to redownload them to troubleshoot. Except now I didn't have the space to store the same mods I had just cleared out. I solved my immediate problem by loading a much older save, but I am still wondering, where did my space go?

 

I noticed a lot of space in the "downloads" section of My file path, is this just where files go while MO2 unpacks them? if so can I clear this out for extra space, or will it wreck my save? See images for the downloads folder in question.

 

Thank you in advance!

[Just Don't]

Downloads are the zipped mods as you get them from nexusmods or any other website. You only need them to install or reinstall mods. You can safely delete them to recover that storage space. And you have easy access to all those files via the Downloads tab in the right pane of MO2, no need to dig in folders to get them. Go to that tab, right click in that space and select "Delete Installed Downloads" or "Delete All Downloads", or select and delete individually files if there's something you really want to keep.

Edited May 12, 2025 by Just Don't

[Miauzi]

Vor 12 Stunden sagte Rzin217:

**Kannst gerne direkt zur Frage im zweiten Absatz springen** Ich bin ein neuer Modder und weiß nicht genau, wie Dateien gelesen werden. Als ich meine Festplatte ursprünglich partitioniert habe, war sie *etwas* zu klein. Ich kann sie nicht neu partitionieren, ohne alle meine aktuellen Daten zu verlieren, daher versuche ich, platzsparender zu arbeiten. Kürzlich habe ich mehrere Mods gelöscht und dann, als mein Spiel Probleme hatte, versucht, sie erneut herunterzuladen, um das Problem zu beheben. Nur hatte ich jetzt nicht mehr genug Platz, um dieselben Mods zu speichern, die ich gerade gelöscht hatte. Ich habe mein unmittelbares Problem gelöst, indem ich einen viel älteren Spielstand geladen habe, aber ich frage mich immer noch, wo mein Speicherplatz geblieben ist.

 

Mir ist aufgefallen, dass im Abschnitt „Downloads“ meines Dateipfads viel Speicherplatz vorhanden ist. Werden Dateien einfach dorthin verschoben, während MO2 sie entpackt? Wenn ja, kann ich diesen Bereich freigeben, um mehr Speicherplatz zu erhalten, oder wird dadurch mein Speicherstand zerstört? Siehe Bilder für den betreffenden Download-Ordner.

 

Vielen Dank im Voraus!

 

You can also move these "packaged sources" – from which you perform the installation – to external hard drives and store them that way.

 

It's important to remember that mods can be removed from their host points (like "Nexus")... and you'll lose all future access to them.

 

By the way:
Partitioning hard drives is "old school" - the file management systems used today no longer require this.
There are also tools that allow you to change the size or number of partitions -> without losing or deleting data... but that would take you far too far away from the actual topic here.

[Guest]

21 hours ago, Just Don't said:

Downloads are the zipped mods as you get them from nexusmods or any other website. You only need them to install or reinstall mods. You can safely delete them to recover that storage space. And you have easy access to all those files via the Downloads tab in the right pane of MO2, no need to dig in folders to get them. Go to that tab, right click in that space and select "Delete Installed Downloads" or "Delete All Downloads", or select and delete individually files if there's something you really want to keep.

Thank you so much! That did clear up a fair amount.  I'm not the most tech savvy >_>

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Miauzi said:

 

You can also move these "packaged sources" – from which you perform the installation – to external hard drives and store them that way.

 

It's important to remember that mods can be removed from their host points (like "Nexus")... and you'll lose all future access to them.

 

By the way:
Partitioning hard drives is "old school" - the file management systems used today no longer require this.
There are also tools that allow you to change the size or number of partitions -> without losing or deleting data... but that would take you far too far away from the actual topic here.

Thank you. If I decide to keep a mod in case it gets taken down I'll move it over to my bigger C drive.

 

T_T I knew there had to be a better way. Oh well, we are into it now. Thanks for the advice :)

[Vyru]

55 minutes ago, Rzin217 said:

Thank you so much! That did clear up a fair amount.  I'm not the most tech savvy >_>

That... no... actually the whole convo is kinda cute and makes me want to give you head pats...

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, Vyru said:

That... no... actually the whole convo is kinda cute and makes me want to give you head pats...

Weeell some of the space was for your mods >///< so I wouldn't say no to that!

 

[Vyru]

29 minutes ago, Rzin217 said:

Weeell some of the space was for your mods >///<

[Miauzi]

Vor 2 Stunden sagte Rzin217:

Vielen Dank. Wenn ich einen Mod behalten möchte, falls er entfernt wird, verschiebe ich ihn auf mein größeres Laufwerk C.

 

T_T Ich wusste, dass es einen besseren Weg geben muss. Naja, jetzt sind wir dabei. Danke für den Tipp

 

Typically, you download mods as a "packed archive" from a server/platform such as "Nexus."

 

During installation, the mod organizer unpacks this archive and places the files in the appropriate directories, etc.

The "packed archive" itself remains intact and can be moved to another directory (or to a separate hard drive) after installation.

 

By "moving" it, you also ensure that the original (packed) archive is not deleted when you uninstall the mod!

 

It will happen again and again that you install mods, try them out or play with them for a while, but then uninstall them again after a while for very different reasons.

And maybe two years later, you'll want to integrate that very same mod back into your game's mod image.

 

I have maybe 900 or 1000 mods for my Skyrim, but I use maybe 200-400 of them at any one time... partly because some mods are mutually exclusive.

 

You should always consider how long Skyrim has been around in the LE and SE versions... and many mod authors haven't been active for a while (some for years).