Can I delete stand alone versions of 3rd party virtual instruments, (keeping AU version only)?

[MarkStyles]

Is is safe to delete the stand alone versions of a 'virtual instrument' used by Logic Pro X?  

Question 2 -A lot of companies make their own 'installer software' which can eventually overflow your system drive. Could I also move some applications off the system drive to an external drive and use an ALIAS, SYMBOLIC LINK, OR HARD LINK? Which is best suited?

Edited August 17, 2023 by MarkStyles

[des99]

Yes, you can delete standalones (I always do, or preferably don't install them).

I would keep applications where they are, personally, and you never know exactly how they've been coded, and some stuff just expects to be in the places they expect to be in...

[analogika]

Unless the installers/management applications specifically give you the option to move stuff elsewhere (like the Native Instruments or Pulse installers), I wouldn’t touch anything. Some vendors seem to roll their own rather peculiar web of dependencies and placeholder plugins linking to the actual plugin within a different package folder…

[rAC]

@MarkStyles if you are feeling brave and can keep good notes of what went where (or can easily just reinstall) you can try deleting stuff eg I recently did this with EW Spaces II (a bug the EW installation Centre software meant it always showed up as uninstalled which annoyed me. EW released a ‘fix’ that would continue to show it as uninstalled unless you installed the VST3 version - so I did. And then promptly used finder to delete all the VST 3 files. So far Spaces II appears to continue work. 

[wonshu]

Just a heads up:

This is going to change in the future with AU v3. Those actually install as Apps and I'm guessing they need to stay.

[redgreenblue]

You should be able to delete any non-AU plug in without fear *but* if you really want to test it create new folders in the Plug-Ins folder like "VST - Unused" and move the plugs to the new folders, that will keep the plugs from loading on the next restart. If everything works as expected you know you can delete them.

[analogika]

4 hours ago, wonshu said:

Just a heads up:

This is going to change in the future with AU v3. Those actually install as Apps and I'm guessing they need to stay.

I really hope they will allow regrouping into folders and still update/work correctly — the Applications folder is way too cluttered as it is. 

[des99]

1 hour ago, redgreenblue said:

You should be able to delete any non-AU plug in without fear

The older Korg ones like the M1/Wavestation/MS20 etc will break, as those AU's are wrappers that load the VST files from the VST plugin folder - if those VSTs are deleted, the plugins will stop working.

Thankfully there are very few others these days that use this method (for that reason).

[redgreenblue]

57 minutes ago, des99 said:

The older Korg ones like the M1/Wavestation/MS20 etc will break, as those AU's are wrappers that load the VST files from the VST plugin folder - if those VSTs are deleted, the plugins will stop working.

Thankfully there are very few others these days that use this method (for that reason).

Good to know, also why I proposed moving rather than deleting first. 

[enossified]

I discovered much to surprise when using the AU version of Komplete Kontrol that the VST version of the wrapped NI plugin is loaded, not the AU version (same as redgreenblue wrote about Korg).  So I needed both versions installed if I wanted to use my NI plugins outside of KK. There is also some weird NI voodoo that requires some setup using the standalone version before the plugin versions will even work. 

I suppose this can be viewed as feature if you want to use KK to host plugins that have no AU version.

[des99]

46 minutes ago, enossified said:

I discovered much to surprise when using the AU version of Komplete Kontrol that the VST version of the wrapped NI plugin is loaded, not the AU version

Yes, KK only loads VSTs. It's one of the (many) reasons I disliked it intensely, and don't use it.

[des99]

1 hour ago, redgreenblue said:

Good to know, also why I proposed moving rather than deleting first. 

Yep, exactly. I was confirming that these days, thankfully there aren't many that behave like this, and examples of ones that I know do.

If I'm not sure, I use the excellent PlugInfo utility to check the plugin sizes - if the VST version is eg 84MB, but the AU version is 10MB, I likely expect the AU doesn't contain the full plugin, and is a wrapper that will likely break if the plugin it calls isn't there.

Eg the Wavestation VST is 42MB, the VST3 is 700KB, and the AU is 1.5MB, which really tells us what's happening here:-

[MarkStyles]

THANX everyone.  All the responses are helpful; temporarily moving the stand alones is a great idea.   

[fisherking]

jthe only issue i ever had was with tone2; 'icarus2' needs the vst in it's place (i found this out the hard way).

i never (or rarely) visit the applications folder, so i don't bother with the standalone of the few plugins that have them. bear in mind, if you update a plugin that does, it will probably re-install the standalone.