Garageband Instrument Library

Question

Garageband Instrument Library

How do I install Garageband on my Mac but keep the entire instrument library on an external hard drive so that Garageband can access it at any time without having to redownload my entire library?

Thanks in advance.

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), null

Posted on Sep 19, 2016 9:27 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,113 points

Sep 19, 2016 11:06 PM in response to TheExpolsiveCow

GarageBand is looking for the Instrument Library in the folder

/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library/

and for the loops in the folder /Library/Audio/Apple Loops/

The system is creating them on the internal drive, and you cannot simply move these folders and redirect GarageBand to use the moved versions on the external drive.

There are two approaches to circumvent these.

You can install sounds and loops in the library folder in your user home folder as well. Install them in the Library folder in your home folder. This will only help, if you relocate the complete home folder of your user account to the external drive. You can do that from the System preferences > Users&Groups. But that would require to have always the external drive connected, before you even log in - not really convenient on a portable Mac. It would work well on an iMac or Mac mini however. (http://macs.about.com/od/diyguidesprojects/qt/Move-Your-Home-Folder-To-A-New-Loc ation.htm)
You can try to cheat GarageBand by replacing the folders /Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library/ and Library/Audio/Apple Loops/ by symbolic links to folders on your external hard drive. This used to work well in earlier system versions. I have never tried it on El Capitan, so I cannot guarantee if it will work. The procedure is described here for Logic Pro, it would be similar for GarageBand: https://music.tutsplus.com/articles/how-and-why-to-move-your-logic-pro-x-sound-l ibraries-to-an-external-drive--audio-195…

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