Using Native Access on multiple Macs with Library on external hard drive

Ralf Rottmann

I'm running NA 3.7.0 (November 2023) on macOS Sonoma 14.1.1 on an M3 MacBook Pro.

My entire NI library is bigger than 1 TB in size, hence I keep it on an external SSD. So the library is in /Volumes/NI-Content/NI where NI-Content is the external drive and NI is a folder within the root folder of this external drive. So within this NI folder you'd find further folders like: 40s Very Own - Drums Library, 40s Very Own - Keys Library, Abbey Road 50s Drummer Library, Abbey Road 60s Drummer Library etc.

Now, when I install Native Access on a new MacBook Pro and change the path for Content Location to /Volumes/NI-Content/NI it does not seem to pick up the existing libraries. Instead, it offers to INSTALL, though the content obviously is already installed.

There is no "Relocate all" option in the Native Access user interface anywhere.

For some Libraries, I can chose "Locate" via the ... menu, however, then I have to drill down into the exact folder for that single Library (e.g. "/Volumes/NI-Content/NI/Abbey Road 50s Drummer Library" ad opposed to just "/Volumes/NI-Content/NI"). I would have to do this manually for every single of the more than 200 libraries. There must be a better way?

Also, for some libraries, like "Amplified Funk" or "Arcane Attic" there is no locate option available in the ... menu but only "Release Notes". Why is this? The corresponding content is already available on the external hard drive.

I tried to describe as precise as possible and hope someone can provide some insight. Maybe folks from NI around and can help clarify.

Right now, the only option seems to manually locate each of the 200+ libraries individually and re-installing the ones, where no locate option is given. This seems completely broken to me.