How to organize your PlayStation 4 game library and make custom folders

Between physical game installs, all those digital games you’ve picked up on sweet deals, and a steady stream of PlayStation Plus freebies, 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, each of which can be tailored to what makes sense to you.

Gaming the ‘recently played’ bar

By default, your game library will show up on the home screen carousel in order of when you last interacted — played or just downloaded — with your games. This standard system can get bothersome come PlayStation Plus time each month. Just because you downloaded a new game, 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, into your full library.

It sounds pretty basic, but one quick way to stay on top of the games you are playing in your library is to always keep them in the first few slots. If Destiny 2 starts to slide but you know new content drops soon, simply open and close the game to move it up to the front of the batch.

Making sense of your library

Sometimes you want to browse your whole library of games. At the end of the home screen carousel, you’ll find the library icon. Organized by category and certain other parameters, the library holds all your PS4 games and applications. On the right hand side, you’ll see five categories below the search bar.

• All: Every game and app currently installed.
• 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.
• 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.”

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 dropdown menu.

• Reverse alphabetical order: Why not go 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-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, each of the other views each has its own appeal.

Purchase library

When sifting through the purchased category, you can use two helpful views in addition to the pair of alphabetical parameters.

• Purchase date: Displays recent purchases first.
• Install status: Our favorite is purchased view, as this places all games not currently on your PS4 first, allowing you to peruse potential downloads without having to scroll past legions of installed titles.

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 and store games using whatever organization system makes sense to you. I, for example, separate my games into four categories: “currently playing;” “to play;” “evergreen” for games like NBA 2K18, which I play intermittently throughout the year; and “VR” for my PSVR games.

Making a folder is very simple. We’ll show how right here:

Step 1: Press options (+) on your PS4 controller and choose “Add to Folder.”

Step 2: Choose “Add to New Folder.”

Step 3: 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 means 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.