I’ve noticed a number of folders in My Documents named according to manufacturer or function - Celemony, Max 8, Native Instruments, UVI, VST XMLs, VSTConnect and so on - and Steinberg.
Not sure why these are present because their plugins also seem to be in the relevant Program files/Common/VST3 folder.
Is there any way to move or get rid of the ones in My Documents, as they are just cluttering everything up? I can’t recall being offered a choice as to where these apps/VSTs were installed but that may just be my defective memory.
The companies follow the Microsoft guidelines on where to install certain types of files to.
Often these files will be presets or something similiar and thus “documents”.
VSTs are shared among all users, and (typically) in common system folders. User presets are specific to each user, and generally saved within the User’s home directory structure (depending on app and OS).
If you don’t want these in your Documents, you’ll have to figure out on an app-by-app basis if the app allows you to set a custom location in the first place, and then move it. The second part of your statement regards apps and VSTs which are different than user files, so that’s a different question, but is also application-based (typically). And then there’s the libraries that these apps/VSTs use, so the overall process can get complicated.
While some strategies may work in the absence of the app allowing customization of the user folders (e.g. aliases/symlinks) even that could require some manner of folder/file structure in your Documents.
You’re probably not going to be able to effectively move all of them, which “in real life” means that you’d end up with a smattering of files spread all of the place, which may be worse. Been there, done that.
Finally, deleting them may just result in the app recreating them, so you’ll have to do some research for every app and every set of files to see what will and won’t work.
It’s worth mentioning that on a default installation of Windows 11, the entire contents of the ironically named “My” Documents folders are automatically and continually copied via background processes to Microsoft’s own servers. Just sayin’ …
