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The Plum Tree App: Important Information Regarding Closure

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the plum tree

Everything you need to know about the upcoming closure

Note: This article has been updated to reflect the announcement of the Plum Tree App’s official closing date. The closure date for the Plum Tree App has been set for Friday, 1st December 2023.

Over the weekend, it was announced that the highly popular Plum Tree App would be shutting down in the near future.

First launched back in August 2016, it has become home for family trees both large and small. The website has become an essential addition to many The Sims 4 player’s gameplay for both storytelling and generational gameplay, giving players the ability to document their families from one generation to the next.

Tobias, the creator of Plum Tree App, has shared a statement documenting the reasons why, and how players can obtain their family trees and thanking the community for their ongoing support over the years.

While the Plum Tree App will be closing down, it is currently in a sunset phase to give players the time and opportunity to download their The Sims 4 Family Trees.

We’ve got you covered with everything you need to know about Plum Tree App closing down, how players can obtain their family tree’s and alternatives that you can use in the future.

The Plum Tree App
theplumtreeapp.com Interface

Plum Tree App: Message to the Community

Over the years the Plum Tree App has seen over 220,000 members as well as over 500,000 family trees created with over 70,000 being published!

You can read the full statement regarding the shutdown of the Plum Tree App from Tobias below.

We’re Shutting Down

The Plum Tree First launched August 2016 which means it’s been running for over 7 years now.

In that time its popularity has grown far beyond expectations and it’s had a genuinely heart warming amount of love from our users.

However it’s with a heap of sadness I’m announcing the upcoming shutdown of Plum Tree for the reasons explained below.

Sunset

The Plum Tree will not shut down immediately. Instead we’ll be going through a period of “sunset” to give users some time to make backups of their trees.

Downloading trees is a recent feature addition. Go to any tree you want to keep, hit download and a .zip file containing your tree’s data, images and a html file to view the tree will be downloaded.

There’s no official shutdown date yet. I want to give a reasonable amount of time to users to become aware and backup any trees they want. For this reason I’ll keep an eye on how many people are making backups and use that information accordingly.

Why Shut Down

There’s a few reasons but the primary one is costs. While I do get a regular set of donations, which I can’t thank those contributors enough for, each month these donations generally fall short ~$100-$200 of the actual server running costs.

Without the help of those people chipping in the Plum Tree would have likely shut down years ago.

Another reason is time. Over the years my other life commitments have left little time for me to work on the Plum Tree. I’ve kept the site running, made optimizations to reduce costs and tried to keep things up to date. However that time given is far less than I had starting out with what was a fun side project. As it stands I don’t have the time to add new features or really give the Plum Tree and its community the focus it deserves.

The last reason to mention really just emphasises the previous two. As of October 1st me and my wife will be expanding our family with the birth of our first baby girl.

While I know for many the Plum Tree will be missed I hope you can understand with even less time and financial spends to be prioritized elsewhere, it’s time for me to take down the Plum Tree.

Thank You

It’s been a fantastic ride. From those who have donated through the years, helped find bugs and suggest features, send in kind words or just used the Plum Tree I can’t thank you all enough.

The project has been fun and challenging in some ways but always a labour of love. I’ve loved the technical aspects of coding the project and had great pleasure from seeing people love something I created.

A final thank you all – Tobias

Tobias via Plum Tree App

Before moving on to looking at the next steps, the Sims Community Team would like to thank Tobias for all of his hard work over the years with the Plum Tree App and wish both him and his family all the best for the future.

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Closing Down Date

Since this article was first published in early September, Tobias has now shared an official shutdown date. The community will have until Friday 1st December 2023 to download their family trees from The Plum Tree App.

Next Steps for Players

While initially, it may seem worrying that players may lose their family trees, there is a way that you can obtain them from Plum Tree App before they close down.

Downloading your Family Tree

Downloading your Sims 4 family tree from Plum Tree App is easy and straightforward to do.

Simply head to your family tree > Actions > Download Tree

You’ll then download a .zip file that will contain your family tree as well as an HMTL version you can view. This can then be used when looking to move to a new family tree alternative.

Note: Do keep in mind, that there will be lots of users trying to download their family trees before Plum Tree App closes. If when you try to download it, it doesn’t work, please be patient and try again a little later on. Remember, Plum Tree App is in its sunset phases with no official confirmed closure date at the time of writing this article.

Alternative Family Tree Options

A number of members of the community have already begun sharing alternative options for creating and hosting family trees in light of the recent news. Here are some of the alternatives players can consider using once Plum Tree App has closed.

These are both free to download and also offer players a wide range of features for documenting your The Sims 4 Family Trees.

While these are aimed more for generic family trees, they are currently good starting alternatives for The Sims 4 players!

Ultimate Family Tree Apps from Yellow Llama Co

Gloria from Yellow Llama Co has a very good video talking more about the My Family Tree app. You can have a look at the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY3pewy3ZfE

The Plumbobber App

Simmers can also have a look at The Plumbobber app. While it’s not a family tree per-say, it does allow you to document various aspects of your Sims family relationships over generations.

Read our full, detailed walkthrough of The Plumbobber App and how to be a pro here.

MC Command Centre & Gedcom Files

Users, who have MC Command Centre installed, can also generate a Gedcom file that can be imported into various Family Tree applications.

A Gedcom file is simply a file that allows you to obtain aspects of a family tree via the cheat bar in The Sims 4.

In fact, it is incredibly easy to generate the file and DEADERPOOL has a full rundown of how you can obtain these files and how you can easily import them into various applications.

Read the full how-to via Patreon here.

While this is definitely sad and unexpected news from the Plum Tree App, there is still time to obtain your family tree’s from the site.

Moving Forward

With the Plum Tree App closing down on Friday, 1st December 2023, we’ll continue to do our best to update the community on Family Tree alternatives in light of the new closure information.

Again, from the team here at Sims Community and the wider The Sims community, we would like to thank Tobias for their hard work over the years on the Plum Tree App and wish both him and his family all the best for the future.


Stay tuned to Sims Community for all the latest news and information from The Sims franchise and more!

About the author

Krista

Hey, I'm Krista! Long time Simmer and Sims Community Staff.

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