When a mod containing unintentional or unnecessary edits (known as a 'dirty mod') is used with a mod that makes an intentional edit to one or more of the same elements, this can introduce the possibility of bad things happening, from incorrect game settings to broken content and crashing to desktop (CTD). Such edits can be a problem when using multiple mods due to the 'rule of one', that states that if multiple mods change the same record, only the changes from the mod loaded last will be applied. Many mods make unintentional or unnecessary edits to game elements. = Section 1: Understanding Mod Cleaning = Devote some time to reading through this guide and you'll be well on your way to have a squeaky-clean mod list and a fun, more stable game environment.

While this guide may seem intimidating, cleaning is not hard once you understand it. There is also a ] at the end of the guide that may be used as a quick reference if you forget what a term means. This guide is split into two sections: the first contains the information necessary to understand why some mods need cleaning and the cleaning process itself, while the second provides the actual instructions for cleaning mods. Clean mods are essential to the creation of a stable modded game environment in which there are minimal conflicts between the mods used. This guide is designed to introduce mod authors and mod users to the concept of mod cleaning and to provide instructions on how to clean mods using TES5Edit.

How to use tes5edit to view conflicts