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Plugins are often installed into the C drive of your computer or laptop. Many software plugins allow you to choose the location for their installation, but some plugins do not give you that permission. They get automatically installed in the C-drive, which causes a lot of trouble if you want to relocate them to another place. Hence, we have created a simple tutorial for you about how to move plugins to the external hard drive.
Can I Put My Plugins On An External Hard Drive?
Yes, you can, and you can also access them easily from that same drive. However, it is not really recommended unless there is no choice and a reason.
How To Move Plugins to External Hard Drive:
There are many ways to move plugins to an external hard drive, but all involve third-party software. The good and safe ones come with a price tag, and even though they allow a free trial of limited days, it is not enough for some frequent users. And less said about the free ones, the better. However, there are still some gems in the free plugin movers, and the one we mention here is the Ultimate plugin tool.
Moving Plugins to External Hard Drive: Step by Step Process:
Follow the following steps to move plugins to the external hard drive.
- Download and install Ultimate Plugin Tool. The software is entirely free.
- Open the program after the installation is finished.
- A window will open with 5 options, scroll and select the last option; ‘Relocate plugin content,’
- Click on next.
- Another window will open up, which will show you the original location of the plugin. Click on the Browse button next to the New location on the same window.
- Select the hard drive where you want to move the plugins.
- Click on next, and allow the process to finish.
Keep in mind that this software is not cutting and moving the plugin from the old location to the new one; instead, it is making a copy in the new location.
Alternate Method:
There is another way to move the plugins to an external hard drive without involving other software. It is much simpler, though, but there is no guarantee that this method works for all plugins.
- Install the plugin first.
- Move the installed plugin to the new location.
- Next, copy an alias or a symbolic link back to the original location, for instance, /Users/your_name/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components or /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components.
This will work even with 32-bit plugins.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: Should I keep my plugins on an external hard drive?
Ans: No, you should not. Let them stay in the internal drive with the original program. If you genuinely have no choice and want to make space, move sample libraries to an external drive. They are big, and moving them will free a lot of space.
Q: Why should I not move plugins to an external hard drive?
Ans: It is because plugins are components of applications. Not always, but often enough, they are needed to be put into folders specified by the host applications or in the host application folders without exception.
Q: What is the alternative to moving plugins to an external hard drive?
Ans: If you are really short of storage, you should move your other non-essential data to the hard drive instead of disturbing the plugins. If that is not enough, you can also relocate related libraries. They are pretty heavy, and relocating them to another storage will open up a lot of space for you to work with.