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Can You Delete Old Installers in IK Product Manager Folder?
This question pertains to IK Multimedia products on the Mac, but maybe somebody knows the answer. If not, it seems like something that IK desktop users may not know about but which they probably should!
Here's my question: Can I delete the Mac .dmg installers that are located in Macintosh HD/Documents/User Name/Users/IK Multimedia/IK Product Manager folder?
Background: I was doing some updating using the IK Product Manager, downloading the new "Lost String Quartet" sounds for Sampletron 2, and when I clicked on the Download button nothing seemed to be happening. I did a search on my HD and found the "SampleTron_2_The_Lost_String_Quartet_Sound_Content.dmg" installer was in the directory mentioned above (ie., the IK Product Manager folder). I double-clicked on the installer and it installed the sounds. A bit clunky and inconvenient, but mission accomplished.
But then, much to my surprise/horror, I discovered that ALL my old installers are located in this IK Product Manager folder, including earlier versions of the programs. 59 GB of data!
Look at this! It looks like insane amounts of space being taken up by what looks like old installers that have already served their purpose.
My questions:
- Can I delete these old installers and reclaim my 59 GB of disk space?
- If yes, why doesn't the Product Manager do this for your automatically?
- Does anybody else have this?
Comments
You can delete them. They aren’t deleted automatically, so that you can easily back up all your sounds on an external drive if you want. After 180 days (I think) you have to pay $7-10 to re-download any and all sounds from IK if you don’t want to keep a backup.
Another reason to stay away from IK then...
Who came up with an insane idea to charge for re-downloading something you've already purchased?! That's SICK
Managing storage on Mac and Windows was always by biggest headache. This type of behavior, the pain of managing concurrent versioning, license managing deamons and the expense of obtaining a complete set of tools at a reasonable (non-professional uses) pushed me to fixed function hardware (digital workstations) and now iPad which is like a DIY hardware unit that surpasses any digital workstation for a similar cost.
But it's worth emphasizing... delete any installers you find lying around. Same often goes for random compressed files... you probably uncompressed them into a folder along time ago.
Letting IOS remove the least recently used apps to allow you to keep adding more content is actually a pretty good way to go. iTunes always has a copy for you to re-install until the developer completely drops support and won't take anyones money or you update and they refuse to maintain the app.
OK, but let a bitch know that they are there!
I'm sure nobody even realizes they are losing all this disk space!
Yes, I knew about the 180-day thing. They tell you that upfront. And recommend backing them up. So I backed up my sound file installers to external disk. But I had no idea these app, update, and sound content, installers were just being deposited in some buried folder on my HD anyway.. Usually the Product Manager does its thing and then tells you that your files have been "Installed correctly". But I just assumed the installer then went away after that, like it does with other companies. Or if they are left behind, they are in your Downloads folder, not buried where you would never think to look for them!
Thanks for your insights!
Oh, and I think the 180 day thing is only for the big "sound content" installers. I believe applications and updates can be downloaded any time as needed. Still, I agree the whole $10 "Sounds Reactivation Credit" fee thing is extremely LAME and I am not aware of any other company that has such a policy. (Although, Waves has their weird WUP thing!)
And do they even tell users to check this folder before charging them a redownload fee?
True. I feel your pain.
Every time I got a laptop I'd consume all the storage in a couple months and figuring out what and how to delete the unneeded files was a nightmare.
Ideally shoving unneeded files up into some cloud backup is the best option.
I was never a friend of backing up... or even filtering my physical clutter. Too much like work.
Here's another issue for me: Re-installing a fresh OS on a Mac or iPad. Is that even possible anymore or do we drag along the detritus of our past with us as we upgrade to new gear?
Re-installing or buying a new piece of kit was my way of starting all over again and getting a new place to work.
Holy cow. Just checked mine and I have 38.5 GB of wasted space in that folder. What's up with this?
So, this has really helped someone... cool beans.
IKM is filled with some definite quirks in the way they do things, many which cause lots of reactions against them.
I’ve always liked Amplitube on desktop. With the recent Group Buy, I now own almost all the software they make, and ended up paying about $230. It’s hard for me to complain about anything after that deal.
If you read through all their documentation, I think they do explain everything. Everything could be done better. I’m definitely not going to spend any more time trying to defend their policies.
At least you don’t have to worry about a crazy kernel panic, which I’ve seen more than a few iLok users complain about.
I too own almost everything they make, and through deals and group buys, etc. I've gotten it all for a very reasonable price. I love a lot of their products. Sampletron is fantastic! So is Syntronik, Modo Bass, Amplitube, Hammond B3X... So many great products. I'm not complaining, and I definitely wouldn't recommend anyone avoid their products.
I actually think this might be a bug in their Product Manager. If it is supposed to be some way of providing a back up for future installs, why, then, also tell you to back up your sound file content to an external drive, and have this whole 180 day thing? And does it really need to store EVERY SINGLE UPDATE! I've got Sampletank 4.1.2, 4.1.3, 4.1.4, 4.1.5, and 4.1.7.. and T-RackS 5.4.0, 5.5.0, 5.5.1, 5.6.0, 5.8.0... EACH of them taking up like 2GB of space! And that's just two apps! If I did ever need these for a reinstall, I would only need the latest one.
All of this adds up to nearly 60GB and counting...
And I only found out about this because of a faulty install with one of their sound file updates. I'm just glad to know about this. I also posted about this on IK's user form. I'm just waiting to get official word on this from IK.
I have a 2TB internal drive and own over 500 plugins from dozens of companies. Most of them have Product Managers nowadays that make installing, authorizing, and updating easy. Usually the installer is either deleted automatically, or it asks you if you want to keep it, or it is left in your Downloads folder, and I delete it manually. I've never seen anything like this where every installer is afterward stored deep in some nested folder like this!
I wonder if any other companies do this. Ha! I should do a search for .dmg and see if any other space is being consumed by these things!
I just did the search... Only .dmgs were from IK products!
You should contact them directly, through your account on IK. They've been going back and forth with me for months on a problem that still has not been solved.
The solution to this, due to having a relatively small internal SSD in my MBP, that I came up with when installing the ton of stuff I got during the group buy was to change the location of installer downloads to an external drive. On my MacBook I use an SD card for this. You can then choose where to install the content for each individual library within product manager. I store most of my ST4 collection on an external as I don't have enough space on my internal SSD. I do install stuff I know I'll use more frequently on the internal such as Sampletron.
But installing IK stuff is far more of a pain than it needs to be. Their product manager is better in some ways than the old system but is buggy and not well designed (in my opinion). IKM have an awful lot of content and the product manager app doesn’t actually manage it as well as it should! You can also still download directly from the web and they have the old authorisation app that's required for some old stuff too... It's a mess.
IK stuff doesn’t deal with edge cases at all well. The Product manager will throw up an error if you don't have the external drive mounted you choose for your downloads for example which requires a force quit. What it should do is check that the download location actually exists first and ask you to confirm if it can't find it, not just crash. These are computer science basics
Also ST4 can be very buggy when it comes to sample locations and the installers seem to put some of the older libraries in the wrong places which makes the plug-in crash. I had to go through the IK folders and put them in the right places manually, after which it all worked fine.If the samples aren't where it thinks they are, ST4 crashes Logic when you close the plug-in window.
Whenever I see any IKM thread on any forum, somebody will always post about how they avoid IKM, or they get annoyed about things like having to install all of T-Racks even if you only own one plug-in.
It's a real shame as once you get through the installation crap, a lot of their plug-ins sound really good. But by making the experience bad, you lose customers. It's especially stupid when on other forums, a lot of the people that make the most anti-IKM noise are basically complaining about their experience of installing a frikkin free plug-in and having to deal with multiple GB of dowlonads and every T-Racks product appearing in their plug-in folder not jus the one they thought they were getting. And then the online PR guy drops by with the "poor me" routine, pisses off the complainers even more and the cycle continues.
TLDR: IKM make really good plug-ins. The experience of actually installing them isn't so good.
Thanks. Yes, I will contact them directly, but since that can take so long sometimes, one can usually find faster answers on forums.
OK, so I did some deeper digging and it seems there is actually an IK Product Manager Manual (who the F knew, much less read it! .. but I digress). And it does actually mention this folder where the installers end up.
What is confusing is some imprecise use of terminology here. The manual says:
" By default, the built-in download manager will download all software content in the following user folder:
/Documents/IK Multimedia/IK Product Manager "
But what they are calling "software content" here is actually the INSTALLER. The actual samples (.pak files) get installed in Users/Shared/IK Multimedia. (And my folder here is over 300GB). And of course the stand alone applications get installed in the macOS Application folder, and the plugins (AU/VST) get installed in the standard location in the System/Library.
Next comes the question, of these installers, what can you delete and what should you keep or back up?
I believe the answer is that you really only need to keep or back up the installers that say "samples" or "sound content". The application software installers don't expire and can be installed, reinstalled, updated, and authorized any time from the Product Manager application.
There are three tabs in the Product Manager: Software, Sounds, and Hardware. If you click on the Sounds tab, you can see what expires and how many days you have remaining in the 180-day period:
This is the stuff that you may want to back up to avoid a possible redownload fee after 180 days.
For example, this week I added new content to Sampletron, so I would want to back up the "SampleTron_2_The_Lost_String_Quartet_Sound_Content.dmg" file.
Beyond that, I believe one can delete all of these installers. You can always redownload them again through the Product Manager.
I'm pretty sure I've now got all this sorted (but would love to get hard confirmation of these details from IK).
I hope this information is useful to other users.
Would like for someone at IK Multimedia to respond on this issue.
Can "all", "some" or "none" of the app installers (and not the sample pack installers) be deleted without destroying something?
Yes.
Installers can be safely deleted. I don’t have any IK installers on my system.
Once the apps and content have been installed the installers have done their job and are no longer required.
I just deleted all my IK installers (backing up the ones w/ sound content) and reclaimed my 60GB of space!
Haven't tested extensively yet, but I don't expect any consequences.
Remember, anything (other than sound content that says "expired" in the Sounds tab of the Product Manager) can be downloaded again anytime, if needed.
Kind of like finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk …….. except in this case, It had been yours to begin with and IK was the one that pulled it out of your pocket and dropped it in the first place.