Recommended location(s) for plugin preset .xml files

Audio Plugins
1

Just wondering what location i should use for my plugin’s preset file folder?

Any suggestions?

2

On Mac you could use ~/Library/Audio/Presets/<manufacturer-name>/<plugin-name>

1 Like
3

or app support:

~/User/Library/Application Support/Company/Plugin/Presets

4

On macOS I recommend to not store presets in ~/Library because your plugin won’t have access to this folder when it gets sandboxed, e.g. in GarageBand.

Better use ~/Music/Audio Music Apps/MyCompany/MyPlugin/Presets/
(~/Music/Audio Music Apps/MyCompany/ is recommended by Apple for audio plugins).

There are a few threads here with more information. Search for ‘Audio Music Apps’.

5

I’m aware that sandboxed DAWs don’t have access to all of ~/Library and I nearly recommended ~/Music but are you sure that includes the presets directory given that this is where the hosts will store presets? I might be wrong and they don’t have access but I can’t see how they don’t when this is where they load and save presets from, no?

6

@anthony-nicholls, you are right. ~/Library/Audio/ can actually be accessed from a plugin loaded in GarageBand. But for whatever strange reason Apple decided that ~/Library/Application Support/ can’t.

To see what can be accessed, take a look at ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.garageband10/Data/ . If there is a shortcut to a folder it can be accessed from your plugin within GarageBand.

7

There is also Triumph that is available on the App Store and therefore sandboxed, and there was Sound Forge but it looks like that’s gone now, maybe when Magix took over they took it off the App Store? I suspect there are few others that could be worth checking too. Anyway I think they will all need access to ~/Library/Audio to access both the plugins and presets. However any other preferences files that are not presets should probably go in ~/Music as you have suggested.

2 Likes
8

how about on windows?