Can anyone help me relocate my NI libraries from my Internal to an external drive?

PeteyCorn · 2025-01-07T21:19:28+00:00

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Hi. Excuse me if this has been asked and answered before, but can anyone help me relocate my NI libraries (kontakt et al) to my external SSD? My internal 1TB SSD is at the limit of recommended space used, and I have a 4TB External SSD with plenty of room to spare. Would it be easier to use Native Access and uninstall everything and then reinstall it to the External or will that confuse my OS to have applications in 2 places? This is above my knowledge level and I don't want to mess it up

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Jeremy_NI

@PeteyCorn I see that you are in contact with my colleagues from support regarding this, don't hesitate to share the solution in this thread when it's found.

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PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/41078/can-anyone-help-me-relocate-my-ni-libraries-from-my-internal-to-an-external-drive

Usually all you need to do is to copy the whole thing as is to the new drive and keep everything as is and then attach the new drive and then give the new drive the same drive letter. In Windows at least that usually is just that. I don't know with Mac but I think that it is more or less the same. You ought not even have to relocate anything , simply copy everything to the other drive and then replace the old with the new and give the new the same drive letter so that everything is at same place on the new drive.

While you should not need the below (I repeat you should not have to do this) then I will give you the links also for relocating and installation if you decide to something else.

Moving a Native Instruments Product to Another Location on Your Computer

Using the Repair / Relocate All Function in Native Access

You should be able to click the three little dots right to the install options and there select Locate ,reference : Re installing a Komplete Bundle Without Re-Downloading Kontakt Libraries

PeteyCorn

I apologize for not clarifying that I am on a 2013 Mac Pro running 12.7.6 (Monterey). I would hope that it would be as simple as moving the folder from it's location on the internal to the new location in a folder on the external, but until I'm sure - I wouldn't risk an attempt that would end up setting me back

PeteyCorn

Maybe someone who has done this on their Mac can chime in with some helpful insights

PoorFellow

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/202611#Comment_202611

I would hope that it would be as simple as moving the folder from it's location on the internal to the new location in a folder on the external, but until I'm sure -

Sorry , yes , i were in too much of a hurry and for some reason did not notice the obvious word "internal "

When using an internal drive as source then you can possibly not reassign drive letter unless that it is a secondary drive that you can change drive letter of and copy directory structure of.

On the other hand then if you copy it all to the external drive and attach that then as long as it is only the Content (Kontakt libraries and expansions) then not only should it keep running from internal drive until you re-locate it (check above links)(Else could maybe be done using the Maintenance entry in N.A. and then Locate ?) but after a relocation of everything to external drive then it should all run fine also. And to test then once it has all been re-located then you can simply rename the main folder on the internal drive to test that it all still runs from external drive as you want it to. (or Rename internal main folder to provoke missing content and then use Repair)

Sorry about me not having had full concentration here initially.

PeteyCorn

It's ok. I sent a ticket in to NI and will wait to hear back either directly from them, or from a Mac person…. I'm not in a rush…

Thanks nonetheless

ALDREAD

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/202658#Comment_202658

This is what I did the other day , I copied the shared folder over to my external drive , then moved the original libraries( apart from previews ) from their location to break the link , open native access, all the libraries will be marked as “repair” start at the top , click repair , it will asked to reinstall or relocate , go to relocate , find the folder and library in new location , hit ok
then repeat for the rest
then in preferences set the content location to your new folder for future installations

Note , if you’re using maschine and you have previews installed , and you don’t want to re- install it , as you can’t relocate the previews (folder named NPBL in the shared folder/native instruments ) you need to leave that where it is , and just delete all the other libraries from that folder once you’ve copied them to your new drive , you can copy over the previews folder , if it make things easier , but there’s no point , so if you do just delete it from your external as it’s about 8-9 gb

ALDREAD

I’ll add I’ve done it the way described above by naming the new drive the same name as the old drive , but only if it was already an external drive

I don’t think it’s a good idea to name your external the same as the internal drive

The internal path is Mac hd / users/ username/shared

Jojo123

As @ALDREAD says, it definitely is NOT a good idea to name an external drive the same as the internal drive. When I installed K13 UCE, I had to download some large libraries on someone elses computer. In the process of installtion one of my libraries, insisted on installing itself on the internal. Later on I just moved it to the external where I have everything else NI, and went through that 'repair' routine as described above. If you follow that you should be good to go. Why not just try a test by moving one small library, go to NA and see how that goes.

JCcares

Guys I have the same issue,.using Mac Ventura & native Access Version 3. I don't see the 'repair' or relocate in the drop down.I see locate though.Need some guidance on this as my drive is almost full.

ALDREAD

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/202822#Comment_202822

first you need to copy your library’s over to the new drive , then move the existing ni library folder inside the shared folder from its place , that will break the link to native access , which should give you the repair option

ALDREAD

I swear in an earlier version of native access, once you’d repaired/ relocated 1 library it would ask you if you wanted to repair any others that needed repairing and do it automatically.

ALDREAD

FYI the maintenance tab in the list at the bottom left of native access window , is where you’ll find relocate or repair libraries option

Jeremy_NI

@PeteyCorn I see that you are in contact with my colleagues from support regarding this, don't hesitate to share the solution in this thread when it's found.

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