Mac Download folder: newbie question

[Bobalou]

new to Mac side of things. do you all delete/remove/move your plugin installers from the download folder once plugins and vat's are installed? thanks

[JFreak]

I keep the current versions of all plugins needed in another folder, so yes, afger download I move them there and delete the old ones.

[dominicperry]

Installers can be run from just about anywhere - in the downloads folder, in the documents folder, on an external disk, pretty much any normal user folder location.
The only place you shouldn't run them from are protected folders like System, Library and Applications.

You don't need to keep them, but you can. Depends on whether you have the space - and whether your backup disk or cloud service will fill up or take ages to back up. In fact, that's my main reason for not keeping installers - I rarely use an old installer myself, so backing up loads of old versions to disk and cloud is a waste of resources. You might want to make some exceptions - old version of Logic, for example, or really old versions of PT and associated plugins which aren't available in your Avid account.

Dominic

[albee1952]

I save all my downloads to a separate drive

[Ben Jenssen]

The downloads folder on mac is really just another folder, except it's where applications are expected to place downloads and all of them do. I have a 'archive' folder on a different drive that I copy files to if I want to keep them. Then I delete the file from 'Downloads' folder. It's in my user folder on the startup drive, so I don't want the startup drive to fill up, and I like to keep Downloads folder empty.

[Bobalou]

thank you gents! great info, appreciate it. I like the idea of moving that folder contents to an external drive. just wasn't 100% sure if there were any apps pointing to that download folder. my windows days still have me extra cautious!

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by Bobalou

thank you gents! great info, appreciate it. I like the idea of moving that folder contents to an external drive. just wasn't 100% sure if there were any apps pointing to that download folder. my windows days still have me extra cautious!

Yes I move out of the Mac Download folder ,,,either another drive,,,,, Or what I do is have a new folder on my desktop (if they are third party plugins not downloadable from my Avid account)
Also I keep the Protools version installers in another folder on my desk top (in case I have to go back, because the older version gets replaced by the newest version in the Avid account My Products