FREE 🔥 Audio Plugin Uninstaller (courtesy of Wide Blue Sound)

[oneshotdeal]

Nope.

I meant the email I sent you — I made you a private link to download the app. Do you see it?

Let's please continue this conversation over email so this thread doesn't get derailed thank you.

Thanks, was in my spam folder. That worked.

And the app is great. I removed over 1000 ghost files and cleaned up a couple of GB of stuff I didn't even know I had flying around somewhere.

[widebluesound]

Thanks for all the positive feedback so far!

We are noting all feature requests, although not all are possible.

How many of you are interested in being able to uninstall plugins that don't have install receipts? It would only uninstall the plugin file and not the other files installed with it. There would be a notification explaining this, and in edge cases could break something since we aren't checking all receipts to see if anything else relies on those plugin files. Although what would break I'm not sure, it's just a general security principle.

Praise
Holy crap is this tool good. Great Job. –Kerby A
Best plug-in of the year –motomotomoto
Really grateful for this! –machinated
Free? If this works as advertised then it’s worth something. –doom64
This is one of the most ingenious ideas I’ve ever seen –Andrew
A freebie that’s worth paying for Thanks –Rockshamrover
It would be cool to see a Windows version –too many people

[jamcat]

Some plugins show all versions (VST, VST3, AU, AAX) together as a single package. Would it be possible to make it so you can select which plugin formats to uninstall in those cases?

[Michael L]

Will you update the free version of this app to fix bugs or add features?

[myoss]

Thanks for the app, very useful!
Just curious - is it somehow based on functionally very similar app UninstallPGK? (which is not supported anymore)
https://www.corecode.io/uninstallpkg/

[widebluesound]

Some plugins show all versions (VST, VST3, AU, AAX) together as a single package. Would it be possible to make it so you can select which plugin formats to uninstall in those cases?

Currently, you can double-click the listing as usual, right-click the .vst file (for example) > Show in Finder, and delete it there.

Going beyond that would require the functionality I posted above.

[kidslow]

I do have a few feature requests:

• multi-select
• filter to not show Content below a size threshold (e.g. hide 0.0 and 0.1 MB)
• filter to e.g. only show aax-related receipts
• additional column for "vendor" ... may not be simple, maybe you could leverage the map that pluginfo has created?

How many of you are interested in being able to uninstall plugins that don't have install receipts? It would only uninstall the plugin file and not the other files installed with it. There would be a notification explaining this, and in edge cases could break something since we aren't checking all receipts to see if anything else relies on those plugin files. Although what would break I'm not sure, it's just a general security principle.

Ends up being more work for the user than Finder, especially if you are going to have multiple notification/selection boxes for each one. However, if you had the function to move the plugin file off to the side (and back) so it's not in a scannable location, i.e. to temporarily "disable" a plugin, that is a more useful set of functionality imho. I'm sure I'm not the only one to do this manually now, and for me it's typically a place like /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Disabled ...

[widebluesound]

I do have a few feature requests:

• multi-select
• filter to not show Content below a size threshold (e.g. hide 0.0 and 0.1 MB)
• filter to e.g. only show aax-related receipts
• additional column for "vendor" ... may not be simple, maybe you could leverage the map that pluginfo has created?

1. You can already multi-select unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean.
2. Is this because you don't want to uninstall them, but at the same time you don't want to see them?
3 and 4: you can use the search bar to find a plugin format or vendor. If this doesn't suit your needs I'd be curious to hear why.

re Quarantine: I just quickly made a script that quarantines plugins that you select from a list, but it's not really faster than just going into the plugins folder and moving it. Perhaps the most interesting use case would be to save quarantine selections, so that each time you re-install/update plugins from UAD and other vendors who auto-install their entire catalog, you can just press a few buttons to quarantine all the same plugins that you specified before (e.g. the ones you don't own).

Anyway, I've noted your vote: quarantining is something we've definitely considered for APU in the past, and still are.

Cheers,
Nathan

[kidslow]

Thanks for the response. I appreciate the software and hope you continue to improve it.

1. You can already multi-select unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean.

Sure can. Must have been user error or I was trying without the CMD key. Obvious now.

2. Is this because you don't want to uninstall them, but at the same time you don't want to see them?

Correct. I just want to hide most of those from view. If they are 0.0 MB I am assuming it is just a receipt, and even as anal as I am, I don't care if there is a receipt or not. Also a lot of false positives after I move a VST3 plugin into a sub-folder, and the plugin is installed but the receipt doesn't know where it went. I'm assuming you're using Apple's Installer receipts to build your db because none of the plugins I manually drop into place (e.g. airwindows, HoRNet) or installed using Pacifist show up.

3 and 4: you can use the search bar to find a plugin format or vendor. If this doesn't suit your needs I'd be curious to hear why.

Can sort now by Plugin Name, Install Date, Content size ... so adding a vendor column would allow one to cluster all the plugins of a given vendor together on the main screen, vendor by vendor. I do see now that the search bar quite adequately filters aaxplugin so that request is already implemented.

re Quarantine: I just quickly made a script that quarantines plugins that you select from a list, but it's not really faster than just going into the plugins folder and moving it. Perhaps the most interesting use case would be to save quarantine selections, so that each time you re-install/update plugins from UAD and other vendors who auto-install their entire catalog, you can just press a few buttons to quarantine all the same plugins that you specified before (e.g. the ones you don't own).

Anyway, I've noted your vote: quarantining is something we've definitely considered for APU in the past, and still are.

Cheers,
Nathan

I do like the save quarantine selections idea and see the value.

[widebluesound]

We've compiled a Tips and FAQ Guide here. It will be accessible in future versions of the software, but figured I'd post it here early since so many of you are power users and inspired some of the content in this guide

[jamcat]

Maybe you could add a feature to uninstall every and all plugins from the computer of a given format (AAX, VST2, CLAP, etc) with a single easy click.

I suggest this because my #1 use for this uninstaller is to fully remove all of the superfluous formats that developers force on Mac users without giving us a choice. I only want the VST3 versions and would like to remove all the others fully and safely.

[widebluesound]

Maybe you could add a feature to uninstall every and all plugins from the computer of a given format (AAX, VST2, CLAP, etc) with a single easy click.

We are strongly considering this for the next update

Regards,
Nathan

[widebluesound]

(accidental duplicate post!)

[widebluesound]

Version 1.1 is out now with some highly-requested features!

There are now two modes: Uninstallers and All Plugins

• ADDED All Plugins mode. A new mode that can delete any plugin, regardless of whether they have an installation receipt. This can’t uninstall support files but has other unique features, such as:
  • ADDED Filter by Plugin Format. In All Plugins mode, a new dropdown filters by a specific format, allowing you to remove the formats you no longer use, or simply monitor how much space they’re filling on your hard drive.
  • ADDED Reveal in Finder. In All Plugins mode, you can right-click a plugin > Reveal in Finder. Useful for scenarios when you aren’t deleting, maybe to manually quarantine a plugin for troubleshooting purposes.

• IMPROVED finds more application support packages in Uninstallers mode.

• Minor UI improvements.

Download for free at www.widebluesound.com/audio-plugin-uninstaller/

Enjoy,
Nathan Rightnour

[Dombaeb]

I hope one day your plugin will be able to completely remove Native Instruments products with all folders/subfolders on macos. NI should have taught their own installer to do this a long time ago, but decades have passed, and I still feel the most terrible stress when I need to remove something...