Organize Your Plug-Ins on Mac

Your VST or Audio Units plug-ins folder looks like a huge mess? Having a hard time finding your plug-ins when loading them from Blue Cat’s PatchWork or MB-7 Mixer? Organize them!

Originally posted on the forum by ninox_rufa, this is our tip of the day.

Organize your plug-ins in the finder, without modifying original install locations for optimal compatibility AND faster plug-ins lookup:

1. Create two new folders somewhere convenient on your system. I’ve created them in my Music folder in my Home directory (~/Music).
2. Label the new folders as “1 Synth Plugins” and “2 Effect Plugins”.
3. Drag them into your Sidebar Favorites section to make them available as shortcuts.
4. Go to your VST and/or AU plugin folders (/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST or /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components)
5. Right click on each plugin you want and choose “Make Alias”.
6. Move these aliases to your new folders.

Here you go! You can now access plug-ins quickly using the shortcuts:

Organise your plugins

Additional Tip: use the Finder’s categories to assign different colors to your plug-ins, and find the right plug-in even faster!

9 thoughts on “Organize Your Plug-Ins on Mac

        1. Unfortunately there is no way to organize these plug-ins like others, as they come bundled in a single file.

  1. Every time I try to load Octave deluxe into patchwork or patchwork synth it cause pro tools to immediately crash. I’ve tried loading it as a VST, a VST3, & AU, it crashes with each one.

Leave a Reply to bluecat Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *