This comes up often enough in GTA 5 that it deserves a straight answer rather than a thread to scroll through.

Short answer

The direct answer is above the fold; the reasoning underneath is there for when the direct answer does not fit your situation.

It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it.

When the usual advice fails

Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of GTA 5. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one.

The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests.

Why it works this way

Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. Everything below is framed around the current state of GTA 5 rather than a launch-week impression. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.

  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Give a method one honest attempt before deciding it does not work.
  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.

Worth knowing alongside this

There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. GTA 5 is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.

The practical answer

Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

What to do instead

Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over.

Where people go wrong

  • Ignoring the platform-specific note and then wondering why the steps do not line up.
  • Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
  • Skipping the prerequisite because it looked optional in someone else's summary.
  • Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.

GTA V FAQ

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

What is the short answer?

It is the paragraph near the top. Everything after it exists for the cases where that paragraph does not quite fit.

Is there a faster method?

Sometimes, at the cost of reliability. Where that trade exists it is described rather than recommended blindly.

Come back to the caveats list if it does not work first time — the answer is almost always in there.