need help. /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ and recovering from a massive cluster----

[anjenthedog]

- Bear with me please, it'll take  a while to set up the questions with background -

At present, the /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ folder contains 144GB of installed mod files

Due to a nonrecoverable Steam crash, I need to start fresh, ie reinstall skyrim from the ground up.

The steam apps folder had already been archived to another drive to accommodate fixing steam, ostensibly to drop back into place after steam was fixed.

Except...

Once Steam was uninstalled and reinstalled, I no longer had quite enough room for the steamapps folder. (still puzzling about that but that's not specifically what I want to talk/ask about), so dropping it back where it belonged wasn't really in the mix.

Anyway, after clearing enough other files to allow moving it back in, I found the game still wouldn't  start and only resulted in a Steam Error message. AND... the drive was now dangerously full with /steamapps/ in place.

So after an(other) obtuse exchange with Steam support, I undid the folder move and speculated and idled and fumed and wept for my old skyrim and so forth for a week or a bit, and now we're here.

I'm ready to give up and reinstall from scratch, but that leads me back to the question of "where to find lots of files to purge, to make room for another skyrim installation of similar "girth" to the one I've been running?"

I only have around 140 or so G free on the drive (with the /steamapps/ folder removed to another drive). But I do have that 144G of content in the title folder though. If I could recover that, then I'd have nearly 300G free and could just go ahead with the new skyrim installation, and wash my hands of the matter

But...there's the rub. Can I just delete them? Will doing so outside vortex causes issues with vortex later?  I have all the source files stored, so it's not like I "need" them at this point, but I'm not sure if wiping the individual mod folders via direct deletion is a taboo vortex act and will make my problems even worse by breaking something in vortex.

Sigh...feeling quite defeated

 

[anjenthedog]

Someone please move this to the relevant forum. I accidentally posted it here in Mod Ideas, where it will probably get zero feedback

[Pickysaurus]

If you're desperate for space, delete your entire game folder and redownload it. Then you should be able to deploy in Vortex to restore them. 

[anjenthedog]

Ok...

Vortex is currently storing 140G of expanded mod archive files from my previous Skyrim SE installation, in its /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ folder, which is the only additional space available to me to expand sufficient space for a reinstallation. 

To be clear, I am asking if I can delete the  ~145 G of expanded mod files contained in /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ manually via file manager, or do they "have to be" removed within the vortex application to avoid some sort of resultant application corruption? 

 

 

[fatr0ck2024]

On 3/12/2022 at 6:08 AM, M48A5 said:

I guess you didn't see "This is what I have read here on the forums " It has been stated many times in the forums that you cannot move the mods but have to make load before and load after rules.

 

This is also explained in the section "Managing your Load Order as found in the Vortex Help Center, FAQ, Documentation.

 

On 3/12/2022 at 9:56 AM, Zanderat said:

You can turn off auto-sorting and drag and drop all you want.

 

 

[fatr0ck2024]

Thanks much for the help, I had no idea my question was live...thought I was just searching:), any who, thanks!

[anjenthedog]

3 hours ago, fatr0ck2024 said:

Thanks much for the help, I had no idea my question was live...thought I was just searching:), any who, thanks!

What does this (and your previous post) have to do with my topic? Why are you posting irrelevant content to my thread?

On 11/6/2024 at 4:14 AM, Pickysaurus said:

If you're desperate for space, delete your entire game folder and redownload it. Then you should be able to deploy in Vortex to restore them. 

Ok...

Vortex is currently storing 140G of expanded mod archive files from my previous Skyrim SE installation, in its /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ folder, which is the only additional space available to me to expand sufficient space for a reinstallation. 

To be clear, I am asking if I can delete the  ~145 G of expanded mod files contained in /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ manually via file manager, or do they "have to be" removed within the vortex application to avoid some sort of resultant application corruption? 

[anjenthedog]

Well Nexus? It's been ten days now.

You dropped this into this forum against my wishes. what's the answer?

To be clear, I am asking if I can delete the  ~145 G of expanded mod files contained in /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ manually via file manager, or do they "have to be" removed within the vortex application to avoid some sort of resultant application corruption? 

[Sulhir]

Quote

I no longer had quite enough room for the steamapps folder

This is a giant red flag.  Your drive should have at all times at least 15% of empty space, preferably 20% empty space for drive health and function.  I hope you're calculating that in your "not quite enough room" statement.

Quote

Steam Error message

Can you be more specific, please?

 

Also stop trying to move the entire SteamApps folder.  The games aren't in that folder.  They're in

Steam\steamapps\common

The Downloading, Shadercache, SourceMods, Temp, and Workshop folders you shouldn't really need, especially since you have your Skyrim mods backed up elsewhere.  You certainly don't need all the appmanifest and libraryfolders files.

I wouldn't go through Steam's "move" dialogue, generally speaking.  I only do that if I'm trying to move a game from the Steam folder to a SteamLibrary folder.

Also, the setup can be a bit long winded but I've switched to a perfectly pristine Skyrim folder that's 100% vanilla and have all of my mods safely kept elsewhere.  Including root installed mods like the Creation Kit and SKSE.  It requires MO2, however, and is a bit of a long setup.  I don't mind giving you a crash course on discord some time or even here if you prefer.

Quote

144G of content in the title folder

What exactly do you need to recover from this folder?  The installed mods in the Skyrim folder?  Unfortunately I'm not that familiar with Vortex but it shouldn't be a problem if you remove them manually and reinstall them via Vortex.

It might be best at this point to do a fresh Skyrim install via Steam and then just install the mods manually with Vortex and skip all the other steps.  And keep 15-20% of all drives empty.

P.S. if your appdata folder is overloaded with potential bloat I'm a big fan of backing stuff up and reformatting because nothing cleans up a hard drive like scorched earth.

[Pickysaurus]

On 11/14/2024 at 12:32 PM, anjenthedog said:

Well Nexus? It's been ten days now.

You dropped this into this forum against my wishes. what's the answer?

To be clear, I am asking if I can delete the  ~145 G of expanded mod files contained in /AppData/Roaming/Vortex/skyrimse/mods/ manually via file manager, or do they "have to be" removed within the vortex application to avoid some sort of resultant application corruption? 

You should never remove these files manually, it should be done in the Vortex UI.

If you want to do this in batch Ctrl + A, Ctrl + Click and Shift + Click all work in the mods table.