Learn how to evict Sims, transfer household funds, manage your neighbourhood stories and more!

If you’re new to The Sims 4, you might find yourself wondering how the Manage Worlds screen works. There are a lot of different icons, menus, and submenus and it’s not always obvious which tools do what. How do you move Sims to a new house? Evict Sims? Manage all of your households in large saves? Can you transfer money between households? Don’t worry; Sims Community is here to walk you through the Manage Worlds screen!

The Sims 4 Manage Worlds: A Quick Tour

If you’re starting a brand new save or loading an older save from the Load Game menu, you’ll begin in Manage Worlds right away. If you choose to resume your last played save, you’ll begin in Live Mode in your last played household. Just click the icon of a grid with a map marker on it to go to Manage Worlds.

Navigate between different worlds via the globe icon in the top left corner. You can see each world name in the centre of the map. Click the info icon to open and read the world description. You can edit the description if you like here, too. You can also see what lot types this world has by clicking the key icon above the description, as well as look for those lot types in the Gallery.

For players who own the Eco Lifestyle expansion pack, they’ll be able to check their world’s eco footprint by clicking the icon next to the world info icon. Each neighbourhood in the world will become highlighted with its eco footprint. Neighbourhoods highlighted in green indicate a green eco footprint. White highlights mean a neutral eco footprint, and brown highlights mean an industrial eco footprint. You can check out all our articles on Eco Lifestyle for more information!

Each world also has its own info popups for each neighbourhood. Hover over them to see these neighbourhood descriptions.

You can see destination world maps by clicking the compass needle icon next to the home icon on the main world selection screen. You can’t move Sims into destination worlds but you can build in them.

While in any residential world map, click the large icon of a Sim and an arrow to go into CAS and make a new household to move into the world.

Manage Sims in Manage Worlds

What if you want to manage individual households? That’s 100% doable. There are a couple ways to do this. The first and most direct way is to click on the home of any Sim living in that world. New icons will pop up in the bottom corners. On the left, you can see more information about the household by opening up the portraits. On the right, you’ll see Build, Visit, Play, and More icons. To manage this household, you’ll want to click the More icon.

How to Evict Sims

How to evict Sims? Evicting a whole household is very fast and easy to do. Select the household, click More, then Evict Household. Confirm that you want to evict the Sims and you’re done! That household has been kicked out, leaving the home vacant for a new household to move in.

When you evict a household, they leave behind all their furniture in the house but keep any simoleons they had, plus the value of the home. They are no longer living in any world and are considered to be homeless townies now but you can still find them in the Manage Households menu in the upper right corner.

How to Move Sims

Moving Sims via Manage Worlds in The Sims 4 is similar to evicting them; however, you can choose whether they take their furniture with them or leave it behind. You can also move them into a new home right away without needing to go looking for them in the Manage Households menu. Basically, when you want to just kick a Sim out into the ether and be done with them, evict them. When you know where you want to move them to, use the move option.

Select the household, click More, then Move Household. Then pick another home for them to move into that they can afford. When you select a new home, you’ll be asked if you want to sell the furniture from your old home or keep it. If you want to leave the furniture behind, choose Sell Furniture. The old house will keep all its furniture for any future Sims that move in. If you want to bring the furniture with you to furnish the new house with, click Keep Furniture. The furniture will go in the household inventory, leaving the old house empty.

Manage Households Menu

If you want even more control over your households, especially managing multiple households, the Manage Households menu is your best friend. Click the icon of two Sims with a pen in the top right of the world map to bring up the Manage Households menu. You can access any household from the game here, including randomly generated townies.

Households are separated into two categories. My Households and Other Households. Played households get moved to My Households while unplayed households stay in Other Households. You can move households back and forth between the two tabs by clicking the heart icon under the household portrait. We recommend keeping all your main households in the My Households tab so you can find them faster when you need them. By default, you can have up to 80 Sims (including pets) in the My Households tab. You can increase the limit to 150, 200, or Unlimited. The game recommends a maximum of 200. Unlimited is not recommended unless you have a top-of-the-line gaming desktop.

Click any household in either tab to see the household description and manage that household individually. You can transfer Sims between households, edit the household in CAS, move the household, or delete the household all together. Be sure you want to do this! Deleting a household is permanent and can’t be undone!

Neighbourhood Stories

A recent(ish) update for The Sims 4 added story progression to the game; however, it’s not called story progression in The Sims 4. It’s called Neighbourhood Stories! Neighbourhood Stories are what allows households you aren’t playing to start or leave careers, get promotions, have children, and more while you aren’t playing with them. You control the Neighbourhood Stories from Manage Worlds in The Sims 4.

There are two places to access Neighbourhood Stories; there is a global toggle in both the My Households and Other Households tab. Each household also has its own settings so you can adjust the Neighbourhood Stories individually.

By default, Neighbourhood Stories will be enabled for Other Households and disabled for My Households. You can change this by clicking the icon in the top right of either tab. Click it to customize whether all households in this tab will die in accidents, adopt kids or pets, have babies, join/leave careers, move in/out, or retire all on their own while you’re not playing them. You can select all, none, or just some of them.

If there are specific households in these tabs you want to enable/disable different Neighbourhood Stories for, click the icon on the individual households and make your desired changes. Neighbourhood Stories set on individual households will always override the global settings.

If you don’t want to deal with Neighbourhood Stories at all, disable them in the Game Options.

For a more detailed walkthrough of the Neighbourhood Stories system, check out our guide!

Transferring Sims in Manage Worlds

It’s easy enough to move entire households wherever you want but what if you just want to move a single Sim? What if your Sims’ kids have grown up and you just want the kids to move out on their own? Or what if your married couple divorces and you don’t want the ex-spouses living together anymore? This can be done in Manage Households as well.

On the Manage Households screen with the household selected, click the icon of two arrows pointing in opposite directions. This is the Transfer Sims Between Households tool. A new menu will pop up, as shown below:

On the left, select any Sims you wish to move out of the household. Click the Create a New Household button on the right to move them into a new household by themselves. You can also click on any world and select a household in that world to merge with.

Keep in mind you cannot transfer a Sim into a household with 8 Sims and/or pets. Pregnant Sims count as two Sims (or three/four if they are carrying twins/triplets). You cannot move children, toddlers, babies, or pets into a household that does not have a teen or older Sim in the house to care for them, either.

Transferring Simoleons

You can transfer simoleons the same way you transfer Sims. In the transfer Sims menu, you can see the household funds for both households displayed at the bottom of the menu. Type in the amount you want and then click the arrow to indicate which household to transfer the funds into.

You cannot transfer more money than what the household has. You also can’t transfer funds unless you transfer a Sim along with the funds. However, if you just want to transfer funds, you can get around this. Transfer the Sim along with the funds, then transfer the Sim back immediately without moving any funds with them.

Transferring funds between households is great for many purposes. Giving children an inheritance from their parents, allowing a Sim from a wealthy family to move out on their own with more than $20,000, or simply a way to “cheat” without actually cheating by taking some money from wealthier households and moving them into poor households.

Free Real Estate Cheat

Speaking of cheating, there is actually a cheat many players might find helpful when navigating Manage Worlds in The Sims 4.

Bring up the cheat bar with CTRL+SHIFT+C (PC) or all four back triggers (Console). Then type in freerealestate on and press Enter (PC) or X/A (Console).

This cheat makes all homes free! You can move your Sims anywhere you want without having to purchase the home.

Did you like this guide on The Sims 4 Manage Worlds? We have plenty more! Why not check out our emotions guide while you’re here?