This may be a dumb question, but My Steinberg (Absolute 6) files are taking up too much space on my hard drive . Would it be possible to move the Content folder to my D: drive and replace it in C:/ProgramData/Steinberg/Content with a shortcut to its location on D: drive? (I’m using a laptop with Windows 11. My Windows partition is 280GB and I only have 46GB free)
Yes the best practice is to install content on its own disk and not the system disk.
But don’t do this.
Instead, using Windows Explorer move your content to the new location. Then take any .vstsound file and double+click it. This will launch the Steinberg Library Manager which will register the file’s content in the new location. It will also register all the other .vstsound files it finds in that folder & any sub-folders.
One can also perform the move directly in the SLM to save some hassle.
That works great for one or two libraries. But, as far as I know, you need to do it for each library separately, which can be a lot of work if you are moving everything.
You can
You can select multiple libraries simultaneously, but only within a given “content source” (e.g. HALion, Cubase, GA, etc.). You can select multiple, distinct individual libraries if you want to:
Or you can hold Opt/Alt to click-and-select-all if you want. But yes, only on a per-category basis. Still way easier and less prone for error, particularly if you want to move them to/fro a lot.
I will say that the process of clicking “Move” on “any of the selected” in order to “move all selected” isn’t very intuitive. ‘Twer it I writing the code, I would have each selected library have the Move button change to the same blue as the “x” or something that makes it more evident you can do that.
I think the SLM is one of the better content management tools out there, even if not more intuitive. It’s easy enough to use for “production vs long-term” storage if you want to move libraries to a faster local drive temporarily (though that’s probably not an issue these days). But yes, the “one product at a time” is a hindrance.
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Thx so much, all!!
The method I described isn’t error prone at all & is simpler for moving more than a couple of Libraries.
Sounds like you keep your libraries in multiple locations? For the OP I’d recommend keeping them in one central location on a disk different than your system disk.
Not anymore, no. I used to a few systems back.
To your point, I personally used the “copy and register” method myself when I did a full reinstall on other studio rig. I even copied over the SDA_downloads.json file to force SDA to report all the “new” libraries as already downloaded.
I was just providing “full details” so that others could make a determination themselves. I used the term “error prone” to describe potential issues with users manually selecting libraries from files with unintuitive nomenclatures, and copying/pasting/deleting.
I wasn’t criticizing your method at all - and as stated - I use it myself for all libraries too 
Please not. It is recommended to use the Steinberg Library Manager to move content. It should be installed already.
I applied both methods the other day and haven’t encountered any trouble so far. At least none that I know of.
If you double-click a *vstsound file in the new location after applying the explorer method (making sure all new ones reside in the same folder or subfolders therein) - shouldn’t the library manager take care of the rest? What’s the downside of the explorer method? Any reports about files not being properly registered by MediaBay? I thought both methods work just fine.
Background: I used the Explorer method because some files were not listed by the library manager and I needed to move them. Unfortunatly, I didn’t check if these renegades were properly registered in MediaBay - I forgot to check since I had to run the double-click procedure anyways. They are now.