When installing our libraries to FL Studio, deciding where to place your plugin files may be quite confusing. By default, FL Studio has a pre-existing folder structure for effect, generators, and vst files. These folders are often seen as the go-to locations for your vst files, resulting in users moving their .vst plugins and/or their library folders there.
These default folders are as follows:
Mac | Windows |
User/Documents/Image-Line/FL Studio/Presets/Plugin Database | C:\Users\[*YOUR USERNAME*]\Documents\Image-Line\FL Studio\Presets\Plugin database |
While this folder can seem like the best place to store your actual plugin files, we advise that you install to your computer's default plugin locations instead, as this can prevent issues with updating or replacing plugin files and can minimize the risk of user error. This is also recommended by Image-Line here.
There will be files in this folder by default populated by FL Studio, you can leave those there, it is just a case of making sure you do not install anything there manually.
The default plugin locations that we recommend sticking with are as follows:
Plugin Type | Mac | Windows |
VST2 | /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST | C:\Program Files\VstPlugins |
VST3 | /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 | C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 |
AAX | /Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins | C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins |
AU/Component | /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components | N/A |
More general information on library installation can be found in this article: Where is my library?