Between physical game installs, all those digital games you pick up thanks to sweet PlayStation Store deals, and a steady stream of PlayStation Plus offerings, your PlayStation 4 library can become rather cumbersome to navigate over time. If you’re anything like us, you may browse your PS4 games list from time to time and come across a title you forgot you even owned. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to ensure your PS4 game library remains relatively painless to navigate with the use of folders and other tricks.
Here’s how to organize your PS4 game library with custom folders, along with other tips to make navigation a breeze.
Further reading
Gaming the “recently played” bar
By default, your games will show up on the home screen carousel in order of when you last downloaded or played them. This standard system can get bothersome come PlayStation Plus time each month. Just because you downloaded a new game, that doesn’t mean you want to play it right away. Eventually, the games you have actually been playing slink all the way to the end of the carousel — or worse, they get bumped out of the carousel altogether.
It sounds pretty basic, but one quick way to stay on top of the games you are playing is to always keep them in the first few slots. If Destiny 2 starts to slide, but new content for it is coming soon, simply open and close the game to move it up to the front of the batch. You don’t even have to play — by simply opening the application, it will shift the game to the top of your list. You should also know that any physical disc you have in the system will always be at the top of the carousel after you boot up the system, even if it wasn’t the last game you played.
Making sense of your library
Sometimes, you want to browse your whole library of games. At the end of the home screen carousel, all the way on the right, you’ll find the Library icon. The library holds all of your PS4 games and applications, organized by category and certain other parameters. On the left side, you’ll see five (six, if you have folders) categories below the search bar.
- All: Every game and app currently installed.
- Folders: More on this in the next section, but if you’ve set up folders (which we’ll explain how to do), you’ll find that category between “All” and “Games.”
- Games: All games currently installed.
- Apps: All apps currently installed.
- Purchased: All games and applications you own, including those not installed on your hard drive.
- PlayStation Plus: These are all the free games acquired through PlayStation Plus and are playable so long as you’re an active member
Unless you’ve created a system of folders, you’ll want to view by either Games or Purchased.
Game library
By default, the games section is sorted alphabetically. Three other filtered views are available to choose from in the drop-down menu.
- Reverse alphabetical order: Why not go from Z to A?
- Recently used: Display games by use. Freshly downloaded and recently opened games rise to the top here.
- Install date: Games will be organized by the time they were installed, disregarding your recent play sessions.
The default A to Z view seems like the most universally intuitive, but if you want to check out your recent gaming habits or peruse downloaded games you may have forgotten about, the other views have their own appeal.
Purchase library
When sifting through the purchased category, you can sort alphabetically or by purchase date. The purchased section is sorted by two categories: Not installed and installed. Your installed apps will appear beneath the lengthy list of not installed apps.
Folders are your best friend
This is where things get interesting. If you want to take control and organize your game library, the PS4 gives you the ability to create custom folders that divide games using whatever categorization system makes sense to you. You might separate your games into categories like Currently Playing, To Play, Evergreen, and PSVR.
Making a folder is very simple:
Step 1: From the system’s main screen, press Options (+) on your PS4 controller while positioned on an application, and choose Add to Folder.
Step 2: Name the folder and click OK. Your new folder will now appear at the front of the carousel.
Editing folders
You can edit the name and content in each folder at any time by pressing Options (+) on the folder icon.
Step 1: Select Edit Folder.
Step 2: Press Select to bring up a grid of all games on your PS4. Checked boxes above icons mean a game is currently in that particular folder.
Step 3: Choose the game(s) you’d like to add to the folder, and press Confirm.
Step 4: From here, you can shift icons around to place games in the desired order within each folder.
Step 5: Enjoy the peace of mind that comes with having your PS4 library curated exactly to your liking.
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