You installed a plugin and it is not in the list in your DAW or video editor. Almost every case is one of seven ordinary things, and none of them throw an error telling you which. This is the checklist that fixes it, in the order worth trying, for any host on Mac or Windows.
This is the cross-host version, the hub. For the exact menus in your own host, each one has its own guide, all linked below. Paths shown are macOS unless noted.
Because the host never loaded it, and almost nothing tells you why. A plugin that installed fine can still be missing from the list for a small set of everyday reasons, and the host stays silent about all of them. Nearly every case is one of these seven, so work down them in order and stop when the plugin appears.
Tunary /Library and the home-folder ~/Library are different places, and some
apps read only one.Most hosts look for new plugins only at launch. If you installed while the host was open, the plugin will not appear until you fully quit and reopen the app, not just close the window. This one step accounts for a large share of "it did not install" reports, so do it before anything else. If the plugin then shows up, you are done.
Maybe not, and that is the reason people miss most often. Every host loads some plugin formats and ignores the rest. A plugin in a format your host does not read will never appear, no matter where you install it or how many times you restart.
An instrument usually ships in several formats at once. The one that matters is whether you installed the format your host actually reads. Here is what the common hosts load.
| Host | Format it loads |
|---|---|
| Logic Pro, GarageBand | Audio Unit (AU) only |
| Final Cut Pro | Audio Unit (AU) only |
| Pro Tools | AAX only |
| Cubase, Nuendo | VST3, no AU |
| Ableton Live | VST3, plus AU on Mac |
| Reaper | VST3 and VST, plus AU on Mac |
| Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve | VST3, plus AU on Mac |
If AU, VST3 and AAX do not mean much to you yet, the plugin formats explained guide lays them out. The short version: on a Mac, AU covers the Apple apps and most DAWs, VST3 covers almost everything except the Apple apps, and AAX is only for Pro Tools. On Windows there is no AU at all, so it is VST3 for most hosts and AAX for Pro Tools.
This is the most common cause on a Mac. Every plugin format has one folder the host reads, and a plugin dropped anywhere else, or into the home-folder copy of the right folder, simply never shows up in some apps, with nothing on screen to explain it.
The trap is that on a Mac there are two plugin folders with the same name: one at the
top level of the disk, in /Library, and a second inside your home folder, in
~/Library. Logic, GarageBand, MainStage and Final Cut read both. DaVinci Resolve and
Premiere Pro, in practice, read only the top-level /Library. So the same install can
appear in Logic and vanish in Resolve.
If a plugin shows up in one app but is missing in another, check which of the two folders it
landed in. The home-folder ~/Library is hidden by default, and apps that read only
the top-level /Library will never see anything in it. Put the plugin in the
top-level /Library and every host reads it. This one thing resolves a great many
"missing in one app only" cases.
The exact folders per format, and how to open a hidden one, are in the
installing on macOS
guide. For Windows, where VST3 lives in one shared folder and there is no ~/Library
split to worry about, see
installing on
Windows.
It can, and then the host hides it on purpose. Many hosts test each plugin before they will list it, and one that fails, or that failed once and got remembered, is quietly held back even after you fix the real problem.
Every host keeps its own record of the plugins it has seen and whether each one passed. If a plugin failed a scan for any of the reasons on this page, some hosts store that result and keep the plugin hidden the next time, so it stays missing even once the underlying cause is gone. The general fix is the same everywhere: make the host scan again from scratch. That means forcing a rescan, resetting or deleting the plugin cache, or clearing the blocklist, then relaunching.
The precise menu differs by host, so use the guide for yours rather than guessing: Logic Pro, Cubase, Ableton Live and Reaper each cover the rescan and the cache reset for that host.
These are the last three, and they mostly bite on newer machines and on plugins from outside the established names. Any one of them can stop a plugin loading with no clear message.
Recent Macs run on Apple Silicon. An Intel-only plugin may not load in a host running
natively, and an Apple-Silicon-only plugin will not load in a host running under Rosetta. Select
the plugin file in Finder, press Cmd+I, and under General it should read Universal.
You can set a host to run under Rosetta from its own Get Info panel as a temporary way to load an
Intel plugin, but a Universal build from the developer is the real answer.
On a Mac, an unsigned or unnotarized plugin can be blocked by Gatekeeper before the host ever sees it. If you got a security warning during install, that is the cause. On Windows, SmartScreen can do the same, and a plugin that arrived in a zip may need unblocking first: right-click the zip, choose Properties, tick Unblock, then extract. Anything from an established developer is signed and notarized and installs with no warning.
Modern hosts are 64-bit only. A 32-bit plugin, common with older freeware, will not load in them and will not appear in the list. There is no setting to change here; you need a 64-bit version of the plugin.
Once you know which of the seven it is, the exact menus and folders live in the guide for your host. Here is the full set.
Most of the trouble on this page comes from a plugin that ships in only one or two formats, or that is not signed, or that is Intel only. A plugin built to cover every host and to pass Gatekeeper cleanly just shows up on the first launch.
The Tunary Collection is three instruments: ARGISH, SILT and REHEAT. Every one ships as an Audio Unit, a VST3, an AAX and a standalone on macOS, and as a VST3 on Windows, and all of them are signed and notarized. So they land in the right folders, pass validation and appear on the first launch in Logic, Ableton, Cubase, Reaper, Pro Tools and the rest, without any of the trouble on this page.
Try one free in your browser first, no install and no account. The whole Collection is one purchase.
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