WELCOME TO THE AAX PLUGIN MANAGER

Manual v1B

by Diagonal Music

Designed to help with creativity, workflow and organisation,
troubleshooting and potentially eliminate P.A.S (Plugin Acquisition
Syndrome) this App lets you Group, tag and move plugins, filter and sort
using many options, activate and deactivate Groups or single AAX plugins
with one click to get the best out of your Pro Tools™ rig and plugin
collection. Bonus features for Universal Audio UAD™ and WAVES™ plugin
users allow you to manage their AAX plugins within the Pro Tools™
environment.

This app only works with AAX Plugins used by Pro Tools™ in the Pro
Tools™ Ultimate and Pro Tools™ Studio editions, not VSTs or Audio Units.
This App is not endorsed by Avid®, the makers of Pro Tools™ and we’re
not affiliated with them, just Pro Tools™ users who’ve wanted to be able to
manage their AAX collections more efficiently. This App only runs on
MACOS 12 “Monterey” and later.

QUICK START GUIDE

Recommended Quick Start: (Honestly just read and do this bit if you read
anything at all and it will probably help you out! )

Note: Latest version of this App automatically asks if youʼd like to Create a

Group of your Active Folder plugins on scanning – do it! Previous versions –

this Quick Start shows you how to do that:

1: Load the App. On the main page, press the Scan Folders button. Wait for the
spinning indicator to stop. You should see numbers next to the folders on the left
hand side.
2: The left side folders are the main plugin reference lists for this app – Click on
each to view in the main list pane – the top “All Plugins” selector shows you a list
all the plugins in both your Active Plugins folder plus the Unused Folder (Inactive).
The number shown is the total number of plugins together. ( Say “Wow. I have a
lot of plugins”)
3: Next down: “Active Folder” – this shows all plugins currently in the main active
Pro Tools™ plugin folder, set to the Pro Tools™ default folder install position on
your computer. Anything within this folder, Pro Tools™ scans when loading and
you can use in your session. Anything in the Unused Folder, shown below, it
won’t.
4: Here’s a strong recommendation: With Active Folder view selected, and its
plugin list showing in the main window, check the “Select All” checkbox. All plugins
in this folder will be selected, you can scroll to check. Now look for the “Create
Group” button top right – click on that and a new menu appears. We’re going to
make a Group, and this will also help us by backing up a list of what plugins we’re
starting at with our Active Plugins – useful if you’re testing out this app’s features
and plugins get moved.
5: In this window you will see text saying “Create a Group with XX selected Plug-
Ins”, the number will correspond to the total number of plugins in your Active
Folder you’ve just selected. If not, check you haven’t entered any text in the
search bar, or applied any filters (more on these later).
6: Name your Group for example “Active Start” . Choose a colour if required. Click
“Create Group” – and then on the left hand side you should see a new Group of
that name and colour appear. Click on it and the list will show what’s in this Group,
which at this stage would be the same as your Active Folder.
7: Now on the horizontal 3 dot menu next to this Group select “Export Group File”.
It will create a text file of that name and you can save it to your computer. This
Group file can be reimported later – so what we have done is create a safe start
state for if you move plugins around you can return to the state your Pro Tools™
active plugins folder was before you messed up – sorry, started experimenting.
Good practice is to do the same for the Unused Folder. The actions you do to the
Groups dictates what is in the Pro Tools™ folders and therefore what Pro Tools™
can access, see below for more information on Groups

If at step 1 you get a message about duplicate plugins, do not panic, read the
Duplicates section below and you might have just saved yourself some
unexplained crash time.

THE REST OF THE MANUAL

The power of this app is in the Groups and the Tags but let’s first have a
look at what you can see when loading the App.
MAIN PAGE overview

1. The Main List: (centre, with lots of plugins listed)
The ever changing list showing your plugins in whatever folder , or Group, or
however tagged, or filtered or how ever it’s sorted! In collapsed view there’s a
small green dot if the plugin is currently in the Active Folder, a grey dot if it is
not.

2. Scan Folders button:
This performs a scan of both the Active Folder (on disk the folder “Pro Tools
Plug-ins”) and Unused Folder (Inactive) “Pro Tools Plug-ins (Unused)” on disk.
The button indicates it’s scanning with a spinning icon, wait until it’s finished
before doing more actions for database accuracy. Plugins are added or
removed from the database and appear on the lists in the window. The App
uses both the metadata within the plugin and the Pro Tools™ generated
plugin cache files to tag some useful data onto the plugins – Category,
Version, Architecture. It’s recommended you’ve launched Pro Tools™ at least
once with your Active Folder plugins as their presence on Pro Tools™ loading
is needed to generate the cache files. This app will try to incorporate new
found plugin information on later scans. It’s recommended after installing new
plugins to rescan the directory to keep the app database up to date or if
there’s been other changes to the folders on disk.

3. Dark and Light Mode:
The sun/moon toggle button top right switches between the two modes.

4. Settings: (Gear Button)
Access Settings page for more advanced functions – details later in the
manual

5. The All Plugins, Active Folder and Unused Folder (Inactive)
The main lists of our scanned plugins on the computer that we can view,
group, tag or action. All Plugins is not a folder on disk just a combined list of
Active and Unused, your whole collection – whereas Active and Unused are
the actual Pro Tools™ folders on disk

6. Main List: Plugin 3-Dot Menu
Action changes depending on context, and will also react to multiple
checkbox selections allowing actions to be performed to more than one
plugin at a time – the display with update with (x) the number of plugins.

Remove from this Group – removes the plugin just from this list, or multiple
plugins if selected.

Move to -removes from this Group and Moves to a selected Group or folder ,
a list of destinations are displayed after selection.

Add to Group / Create / Duplicate – plugin won’t be moved from the current
Group – a list of destinations are displayed after selection or another way to
create a new Group which you can create with the bottom option.

Show in Finder – opens a finder window to show you the plugin on disk

Move To Trash – proceed with caution obviously, but a quick way of doing
cleanups of definitely unwanted plugins. Note this App doesn’t delete
anything itself for safety reasons – the worst it can do is move to the trash
(retrievable by user) or move plugins around as designed.

Show Expanded View – opens the view showing more information for this
plugin, or use the overall expanded view to open all.

Edit Tags – opens the Tag editing menu – can be performed to all check box
selected plugins – more details in the Tag section

7. Search Text Bar
Type to search, will filter out as you are typing. The powerful feature is that if
you’re in a folder view or Group view will only search in the items in that folder
or Group, and as you move through your choice of those the list will change
as the search text is kept. Small x to clear the text. This is searching for plugin
names, for Tag search we use the filter, or work in combination with filter and
text search.

8. Filter:
Lots of options – first select the Group, or overall folder for the plugins to be
filtered ,then add text search bar text if needed and click the filters required –
the filter will work through that plugin selection. The folders and Groups can
be moved and the filter will re-filter through the new selection quickly. Multiple
filters can be applied at the same time.

Click the x in the text bar or select the “clear option” to reset the Filter. Filter is
coloured to show filtering is happening, just in case your search is not
returning what you think it should.

Show Active Only – useful as with a Group there can be both status plugins
Show Unused Only – as above
Show Missing Only this refers to when a Group has a plugin in the Group list
which is no longer present in the active or Unused Folders, can happen when
a user has deleted a plugin or a Group file is imported into a computer without
the same plugins installed
User Tags Search – the names of any created Tags show up in the list here
Categories: All the App Generated tags for Plugin categories extracted from
the metadata will appear here, see disclaimer in the App generated tags
section about accuracy! This search is additive as it didn’t make much sense
the other way round eg – delay and reverb selected will give you all delays
and all reverbs in your list selection, not a delay that is also a reverb – a bit
niche.
Manufacturers: Again as extracted from the metadata, there have been some
corrective backend tweaks where manufacturers have slightly differently
presented names for each of their plugins and they are grouped but inevitably
there will be outliers here.
Architecture:
Showing silicon / intel / Universal status of the plugins.

Expanded view can also be accessed on a single plugin basis through the
vertical 3 dot menu.

Duplicate Status:

Show Newest Version Only – where you have a version of a plugin in the
Active and one in Unused folders, or 2 or more in Unused (this is safe to have
as Unused is inactive)
Show Older Duplicate Only – these are the older copies of duplicates, often
a quick way to dump unwanted versions, move to trash etc
These three you probably don’t normally need
Show Copy Names Only – comes into use with the Active Folder duplicates
problem when the App identifies them, plugins that are a duplicate and have
the word “copy” somewhere in the titleShow Byte-Exact Duplicates Only –
comes into use with the Active Folder duplicates problem when the App
identifies them, hash compared plugins that are the same but with different
names
Show Only Problems – this is only used when there is a two plugins the
same in the Active Folder – not allowed – and is the “quick option” button link
to if you ever get that message.

9. Sort:
Changes the order the Main list is shown
Name – most logical search
Status: Active First – so when you’re in big Groups handy to see.
Date Added: quick way when you’ve just installed new plugins and scanned
the app to get them at the top of the list for Grouping etc
Date Created: quick way to find those Dark Ages installed plugins

10. Collapsed/Expanded view toggle.
Defaults to collapsed view to save screen space. Expanded view shows the
App generated tags (version/architecture/category) etc , plus the user
generated tags if any. Also shows the disk path and file name. Other tags you
may see are “Newest In Folder” – this means there is another version of the
Plugin in the Unused Folder and this is the newest version of the two. “Older
Duplicate” is the older, try using this filter on the Unused Folder view.

11. GROUPS: (appear on the left hand side when created)
The powerful part of this app! With Groups you can manage your AAX plugins easily,
to help with session organisation, or system troubleshooting, and many different
creative setups. Each Group is a list of plugins that you can further organise or
action – ideas at the end of this manual for Groups. In each Group’s horizontal 3 dot
menu you’ll see the following

ONLY This Group’s Plugins in Active Folder
This action moves all the named plugins to the Active Folder, and moves all the
plugins that are not in this Group to the inactive folder. Think of this as a function to
activate exclusively the Group – you want those plugins and no others. Can be
powerful, so good that you followed the original advice in the manual to create a
Group of your current Active Plugins so you can always get back to that state… you
did that, right?
The exception to the “ONLY” command is the Pro Tools™ Factory Plugins, which are
installed by Pro Tools™ on startup and recreated if they are not there. This app will
always prevent these being moved from the Active Folder with performed operations,
you will notice if you add a Group to the Active Folder the count will always include
the Factory Plugins (currently 31 plugins). The user can open the Mac Plugins folder
and remove them but Pro Tools™ will recreate and you’ll probably end up with a
duplicate or two, so don’t bother. On the settings page there is an option to allow
these to be moved within the App operations, in case of Pro Tools™ version
differences, but really, just leave that alone.

ADD This Group’s Plugins to Active Folder
This adds the Group to whatever else is in the Active Folder – nothing is moved out,
and the App will intelligently avoid creating harmful duplicates if this Group contains
any already active, so you can throw a “Favourite Effects” Group at the Active Folder
and it will only add what might not be there already from another Group.

MOVE This Group’s Plugins to Unused Folder (Inactive)
You may find yourself moving plugins individually but this is a quick way of removing
a specific set of perhaps session specific older plugins, troubleshooting plugins,
review or beta versions etc out of the working Active Folder.

Duplicate
Creates a copy of a Group but is completely independent of the original for ease of
further list tweaking. Option to name and recolour when duplicating.

Rename / Colour
As expected, also useful when you import a Group as the name is changed to the
name of the Imported Group so can be renamed for clarity.

Export Group File
For backup, or moving your Group information to another computer. In text format so
will also include useful information on versions/tags etc

Import Group File
You can only reimport a Group File you’ve created to a Group, it will overwrite the
current Group so be aware, or create a new empty Group to import into.

Clean Up Orphaned Plugin ID’s
On rare occasions where there may have been user movement of Plugin’s outside of
the App you may find a scenario where a Group’s number of items doesn’t seem to
match what’s on the list. This would be the time to use this option. The App tries to
keep track of wherever a Plugin is within the Active and Unused Folders, and also
within any manufacturer or user generated folders therein, so sometimes this can
happen if it loses track of one through external user factors.
This cleans the database references in Groups. You may come across a Group
where the number is different to the amount of items on a list –
When you outside the App delete or uninstall a plugin, your Groups may still contain
references to that plugin’s ID – and this is what happens. This tool scans each Group
and removes any plugin IDs that no longer exist in the database. If you use the App
to remove plugins it handles this in the database better. For example: You had
“FabFilter Pro-Q 3” in a “Mixing EQ” Group, you uninstalled Pro-Q then the Group
still has that plugin’s ID saved (it just shows nothing or an error). This tool removes
those “ghost” references.

12 : USER TAGS: (appear on the left hand side when created)
Tags are another useful way to find your plugins and help with workflow,
independent from Groups. As well as the (uneditable) App generated
tags created by the App scanning the plugins and cache files , a number
of user created Tags can be added to any plugin. When on the main list
view in either the folders or a Group, click the vertical 3 dot menu next to
the chosen plugin and select Edit Tags. You are presented with a text
box, here you can create a new Tag and press the blue + button. The tag
is then added to the box below.

If you’ve any existing tags you’ll see an option to click those to add to the

tags on this plugin. Save Tags to exit
this page. Note: multiple selections are possible when editing tags,
simply select the checkboxes of the plugins you want to edit first, when
you click the menu you will see the number of plugins the tags will be
added to.

On the left hand side of the main page you’ll see a list of all created tags.
Click on any and the list view will change to display all the plugins with
that tag. The display is not affected by the folder or Group you are in,
wherever the tagged plugins are they will be shown. If you wish to filter
by tag – for example only find the user tagged “Cool FX” plugins in a
Group or a folder, select those first and use the filter drop down menu –
all user tags appear as an option there.

Tags are also shown in expanded view list on the main page

You can export a list of tags and reimport, good for setting up another
computer. The app will attempt to reattach the tags to updated plugins of
the same name.

A note on App Generated Tags
The App will attempt to find all the metadata it can on the plugin and add
to the database. When in expanded list view you can see the information
retrieved. This is not user editable, add your own tags for this. Some of
the data is taken from the Pro Tools™ cache files generated when Pro
Tools™ boots up and scans all the plugins so it’s recommended that
you’ve at least launched Pro Tools™ once before you scan using this
app, which would most likely have happened if you’ve a working rig. On
future scans any further information found will be added to the database.
It is noted that researching this there is a large variety of differences in
quality of metadata and some of the older plugins store metadata
differently, some plugins are missing correct version numbers or have
multiple spellings of the same manufacturer. For this reason use this as a
guide only, the categories in the Pro Tools™ menus seem to be worked
out ok.

DUPLICATES in the database:
There are two types of duplicates you’ll come across using this app (if you
indeed do have duplicate plugins)
Firstly, and worst-ly, duplicates in the Active Folder are not tolerated! These
have proven to be a source of mysterious crashes or behaviour in Pro Tools™.
This can happen when you’re manually reorganising plugins, or reinstalling an
old AAX plugin file directly rather than from a pkg or DMG. There seems to be
a couple of common duplicate scenarios we found so on every scan the app
checks for these. If you immediately came across a duplicate warning when
you started on page one this is what you need to know.
All plugins are scanned and hashed so if you have “pluginorange.aax” but
also the same plugin thats somehow been renamed “pluginlemon.aax” this
app will alert these as exact duplicates. It will also raise a warning if plugins
are found with similar names appended with “copy” where you have a similar
plugin named without for example “pluginorange.aax” and “pluginorange
copy.aax”. These seemed to be the most common of the duplicate problems,
there maybe others caused by manufacturers installers or user behaviour so
keep an eye out for those as you work with the lists, especially when
searching by text input through the All Plugins folder – but you are guided to
address the serious ones immediately.

If you get the warning the easiest way to do this is to select the Show
Problems button, this will reduce the list to the problem plugins, there will be
the original and the copy/duplicate and it’s up to the user to decide what
shouldn’t be there. Leave the desired plugin, select the rogue plugin and
move to trash, the Unused Folder or manually open finder and move to your
backup location. Rescan and the warning will not reappear if the duplicates
been removed. The settings page will show a little more information on the
duplicates found.

The second type of duplicate is where you’ve an older version in the Unused
Folder that maybe you’ve been keeping for session recall – sometimes older
plugins are needed for architecture compatibility or newer revisions have
broken backward compatibility or even sound different. No problem , if the
plugin is in the Unused Folder that’s ok, and the app will attempt to label this
as an “older duplicate” meaning inversely you’ll see a “newest in folders” tag
on the active version. This is not an alert to tell you there is a newer installer
available for this plugin, this app doesn’t do any manufacture version
monitoring – the version tag is generated from the plugin’s own internal data
or Pro Tools™ cache.

Sometimes you’ll want to move a plugin from Active to Unused where there
already is an identically named plugin – if this is the case the app will append
a unique number to the end of the plugin name – eg pluginorange_
175362728.aax. This doesn’t affect plugin functionality and the app tracks
these changes and when moved back to the Active Folder will be stripped
back to original. In some scenarios where the user has changed the folders
you may find a plugin retains it’s unique id in the filename despite the app
moving it as requested, no problem, first try the “remove orphaned file ID’s”
option, or just manually remove this appended number if not. The plugin is not
altered in any other way than its name, Pro Tools™ uses the internal plugin
data to operate so this is not an issue.

Use of the duplicate filter is a good way to start getting rid of older plugins
you probably don’t need.

SETTINGS PAGE:
Accessed via the wheel button, return via wheel button or click any folder or
Group. More advanced features you might not need every session.

Scan Folders button:
Same functionality as main page

Plugin Folders:
These default to the original Pro Tools™ folder locations and really there’s no
need to fiddle with these.
There is a possibility you may wish to have the Unused Folder somewhere
else , or the Pro Tools™ default location may one day change hence the
options – but it’s strongly recommended you leave these as they are.

Plugin Tags Management:
This creates an overall text file of which tags you’ve assigned to which
plugins, and an import option. When reimported the app will attempt to match
up the plugins in the database with the ones in your tag file. Useful for setting
up a second computer and keeping a backup of your tagging work.

Complete Data Export:
Again a readable document of everything in the app database for backup or
troubleshooting. There’s no import for this because of the possible changes to
the plugins in your system, or second rig, so this is a reference list only, useful
for documenting what you were running at a certain time for a certain project
etc.

Waves Plugin Management:

This is only for Waves v15 and upwards users, useful if you want to thin out
the amount of Waves plugins in your system appearing in Pro Tools™ menus
but recommended to leave unmanaged for simplicity – also if you use an
additional DAW as it affects all apps that use Waves . Waveshells are the AAX
plugins that Pro Tools™ uses, you may have one or more than one in your
Active Folder. Each of these reference a folder outside of the set Pro Tools™
Folder in /Applications/Waves /versionx which contains all the individual
Waves plugins. You can’t add or manage individual Waves Plugins to Groups
like you can with other plugins – if you want to use them in Pro Tools™ you
need a Waveshell in your Active Folder – so this section of the App is just for
convenience and will move the Waves plugins in and out of a newly created
“Unused” folder. This action will affect all other DAWs on your system and the
WAVES plugins will not be available in those until restored/rescanned.
Scan the Waves Folder and it should give a list of all Waves plugins when you
expand the list. You may see for example v15 / v16 versions of the same
plugin but the Waveshells seem to handle the appearance of the correct
versions in Pro Tools™. Selecting via the checkbox you can enable or disable
individual plugins that on next Pro Tools™ startup will or won’t be in the
plugin menus. “Return To Default” moves all the Waves plugins back to the
folders from any Waves unused folders.
If you want no Waves plugins in Pro Tools™ in certain setups, just remove the
single Waveshells from the Active Folder, or do/don’t include them in a Group
you’ve made, thats the simplest way to manage. It’s recommended that if
updating Waves make sure all plugins are back in their default positions to
avoid duplicates and Waves Central problems.

UAD™ Plugin Management:

This is only for users of the hardware/DSP UAD™ plugins, the native version
UADx™ plugins are not included in this management area and can be treated
as any other plugin. Unlike the Waves plugins above you can treat each
UAD™ plugin as a normal plugin adding to Groups, tagging etc. When UAD™
is updated the installer adds the whole library of current UAD™ plugins, and
excellent as they are, you may not want all of those in your menus especially
if most of them are unlicensed on your system. Here you can manually move
plugins to the Universal Audio Unused folder in the main Unused Folder to
thin out your list, or you can try uploading the UADsystemprofile your UAD™
console generates and this app will try to match your licensed plugins , tick
the ones you haven’t got authorisation for and then you can quickly disable
them (which moves them to Unused).
Unlike other UAD™ plugin managers this one manages only the AAX versions,
and also does not delete anything, just moves to unused. Use another app if
you need to save the disk space
Manual moving of UAD™ plugins in recommended for accuracy or when new
plugins are launched, or plugin names changed by Universal Audio. The App
currently selects the plugins you do not have ready for moving so should
cover these events – but keep an eye out.

Manual / Webpage Link
Congratulations on reading this manual.

Danger Zone:
Proceed with caution.

Reset Database:
Back to a blank state ready to scan again, only removes the databases not
the plugins. Option to remove Groups as well.

Delete All Groups:
If you’ve been experimenting and they’ve got out of control!

Fix File Permissions:
You might come across this if when moving plugins in and out of the Active
Folder, some don’t get moved and others do – a red warning may appear
suggesting Permissions, . You may have seen similar when on your computer
moving plugins out of the folder asks for your password. Some plugins are set
like this, or become like this, so you need to reset the permissions. This
doesn’t harm them! Click the button in the App and you will then be shown a
copy button – this generates a Terminal (native Mac App) command – click
Copy in the app – then on your Mac open Terminal, paste using Command+V
the code which will look something like

“sudo chown -R $(whoami) ‘/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins’
‘/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins (Unused)’ && sudo chmod –
R u+w ‘/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins’ ‘/Library/
Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins (Unused)’ && echo ‘Permissions
fixed successfully’”

Enter your password – you won’t see it as you type it in – press return and
after a short while should return with the message – “Permissions fixed
successfully” – try the App moving actions again and hopefully fixed.
Clear Pro Tools Cache

These are the files that Pro Tools™ creates and this app uses located in the
Shared/Pro Tools folder. This is safe to action. – only when Pro Tools™ is
closed – Pro Tools™ will rebuild the cache next time you open it.Note the potential for the 206888 error which is when you have so many
plugins Pro Tools™ crashes until you’ve completed restart a few times – a Pro
Tools™ issue which recently has been fixed, older versions still may have this.
You probably don’t need to trash these, just a troubleshooting measure
sometimes recommended.

Clean Timestamped Duplicates:

This cleans the actual plugin filenames in the Unused folder if they’ve been
appended with a Timestamp.When moving plugins to the Unused folder, the
app sometimes adds timestamps to prevent overwriting when there are
duplicates (e.g., “MyPlugin_1699999999999.aaxplugin”). These name
changes to the file don’t affect the use or the name of the plugin in Pro
Tools™ – that’s set by the metadata. Over time, you can accumulate multiple
timestamped versions of the same plugin. This tool scans the Unused folder
for timestamped plugin files then Groups them by base plugin name the
keeps only the newest version, moving the older timestamped duplicates
to Trash Eg Unused folder has: “Compressor_1699000000000.
aaxplugin”, “Compressor_1700000000000.aaxplugin”, “Compressor_
1701000000000.aaxplugin” this tool keeps the newest (1701…) and moves
the older two to Trash

Reset Waves Plugins
Resets to the default locations of the Waves plugins and goes back to
unmanaged use where all are back available in Pro Tools™

Factory Plugin Protection Override
Open this and you can unlock the factory plugins from the default App
behaviour – which is not to allow them to be moved. Maybe there’s a plugin
thats not with your system or version, be aware Pro Tools™ regenerates these

TIPS:
Recent Pro Tools™ allows you to add a plugin whilst running (removing is
NOT RECOMMENDED) so when you move a Group or single plugin to the
Active Folder within a short period of time they will appear and be useable.
This is great for missing plugins, also keeping a lean plugin active and only
adding the ones you need when you need them. If you open a session and
are faced with a number of missing plugins quickly search the Unused Folder
for them, create a Group called “Track X etc” and then ADD to the Active
Folder – should be scanned and you will be given an option to activate them
on the tracks that use the missing plugins.
——
Generally you don’t need to worry about duplicates being created by moving
Groups or plugins around as the backend will stop duplicates being created,
and you will see messages telling you if plugins have been skipped during a
move or an add because there’s already the plugin in that position .
———————————

WHAT GROUPS COULD I MAKE ? Some real world suggestions…

*As with this manuals 1st recommendation – take your whole Active Folder
list into a Group, then make a duplicate – this is knockout stage one! Really
need all those plugins? No! So thin it out. Duplicate again and make it really
ruthless, only the one’s you really need. Great for efficiency, reducing the
chance of plugin issues and screen and menu clutter. Move to your Active
Folder or return to the whole original set when needed with one click.

*Recalling something from years ago and getting the missing plugins dialogue
in Pro Tools™ ? Create and name a new Group for your track , search through
your Unused Folder by the missing plugin name – if they’re in there add them
first to this Group rather than straight to the Active Folder. Any missing
plugins not in your Unused Folder you need to reinstall for this track? Install,
then search the Active Folder using the Recently Added menu option – see
them there? Add to this same Group. If you’ve got them all ADD these to the
Active Folder. Recent Pro Tools™ will recognise them (whilst play is stopped)
and give you an option to activate. As sometimes these older plugins can
cause compatibility problems, after Pro Tools™ close and you’ve finished this
recall, find this track Group and MOVE all to unused, nice and neat. Export
the Group information txt for archiving

*A Group of plugins of just those that your collaborator/mixer has installed –
make these ONLY active after my production session and bounced virtual
instruments, do my mix with this Group and know that whatever I’m working
with can be opened by them without problems.

*A Group of iLOK Cloud and machine / serial licensed plugins only – for
making music , or editing, or quick mastering and you don’t want to use or
take the physical iLok with you, or you’ve forgotten it before you went to the
coffee shop but at least you can run something to work with.

*Lot’s of ATMOS or specialised mixing tools that you’re just not using in
everyday work? A Group for these is easy to move in and out of the Active
Folder.

*A Groups Of UAD™ Plugins – as well as using the settings page to move
UAD™ Plugins you can still still have either a “best of” or making a Group of
your authorised also lets you move them with one click if you don’t have the
UAD™ hardware connected, and back again when you do.

*A Group of plugins aimed solely at music production, – a larger Group of all
my instruments and favourite effects, and create a duplicated Group which
can then be stripped further into a super efficient desert island favourites list.

*A Group designed just for dance music production, or band mixing, or writing
session essential tools, or podcasts, or with all your immersive mixing tools.

*A Group of underused plugins that have been secretly sitting there unloved,
bring a selection together and activate , maybe use these before buying
more?!

*Help your production and laptop Macs keep in sync – on the main computer
create a Group for active, export this and reimport into Mac 2, check the list –
see the missing plugins and reinstall these for unity.

*Loads of free AAX plugins to check out but not sure If they are useful or even
stable? Install them all then rescan the folders, go to the SORT BY and select
newly added. You should see them all there, select them, create a Group”
FREE PLUGINS” and you can keep an eye on them – any proving
indispensable? – easy then to move all or single plugins back to inactive with
a click.

PRIVACY AND LEGAL:
Avid, Pro Tools™, Pro Tools Studio™, Pro Tools Ultimate™ are trademarks of Avid
Technology, Inc.
Waves and Waves Plugins are a trademark of Waves Audio Ltd
The Universal Audio name,”UAD”, “UADx”, are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Universal Audio Inc.
VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH
All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
THIS APP IS NOT ENDORSED BY ANY OF THE COMPANIES OR TRADEMARK OWNERS
OR SUPPORTED BY THEM, WE ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY OF THESE COMPANIES.
—————
PRIVACY POLICY
Diagonal Music – AAX Plugin Manager
Last Updated: [28th November 2025]
APPLICATION DATA COLLECTION
AAX Plugin Manager operates entirely offline with no internet connection
required. This application:
• Does not collect, transmit, or share any personal information
• Does not include analytics, telemetry, or usage tracking
• Does not send crash reports or performance metrics
• Stores all data locally on your Mac in a SQLite database
• Only accesses Pro Tools plugin folders you configure
Data stored locally includes plugin metadata (filenames, paths, tags, and
groups you create). This data never leaves your computer and is not
accessible to Diagonal Music or any third party.
No account creation, cloud sync, or external services are used.
THIRD-PARTY RESOURCES AND CONTENT
Users acknowledge that they assume full responsibility and all risks
arising from their use of any third-party resources, plugins, and content
with AAX Plugin Manager. Users are solely responsible for ensuring that
they have the necessary rights to any third-party content they access or
manage using this application.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
Diagonal Music reserves the right to update this Privacy Policy at any
time. Your continued use of this application after any change will
constitute your acceptance of such change.
WEBSITE PRIVACY
Our website (aaxpluginmanager.com) may use third-party analytics services.
The collection and processing of website data is separate from this
application and is governed by the respective privacy policies of those
services. We do not email users unless they opt in to a mailing list.
CONTACT US
For questions about this Privacy Policy, contact: support@aaxpluginmanager.com
DISCLAIMER
AAX Plugin Manager modifies the location of Pro Tools AAX plugin files on
your system. By using this application, you acknowledge and agree:
1. QUIT PRO TOOLS FIRST
Always quit Pro Tools before moving plugins to the Unused folder. Moving
plugins while Pro Tools is running may cause unexpected behaviour.
2. FILE OPERATIONS
This app moves .aaxplugin files between your Active and Unused folders.
While designed to be safe and reversible, you are responsible for
maintaining backups of important files.
3. NO WARRANTY
This software is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. The
developer is not liable for any damages arising from its use, including
but not limited to plugin compatibility issues, deletions or workflow disruptions.
4. PRO TOOLS COMPATIBILITY
This app manages plugin file locations only. It does not modify Pro Tools
itself or individual plugin files. Compatibility with specific Pro Tools
versions or plugins is not guaranteed. Compatibility with 3rd Party Plugins (including but
not limited to the WAVES and UAD management sections)I s not guarenteed.
5. FACTORY PLUGINS
Avid factory plugins are protected by default to prevent system issues.
Override this protection at your own risk.