🔎 VSTective — The Plugin Detective

Find every audio plugin on your PC, and find out exactly which folders they live in.

Every drive. Every plugin. Case closed.

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The problem this solves

Hosts like Reaper and Gig Performer don't magically know where your plugins are — you have to hand them a list of folders to scan. That would be fine if plugins lived in one place, but they don't. Every installer picks its own spot:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\iZotope
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg\VST2\Newfangled Audio
C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins\UJAM
C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins\Overloud
C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins\Audiority
C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\VSTPlugins 64 bit
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3
...

That's a real example — 22 different folders on one ordinary machine. Miss one and a plugin you paid for simply never shows up in your DAW, and you have no idea why.

VSTective finds all of them, then hands you the folder list ready to paste straight into your host's plugin search paths.

What it finds

Format	Detected as
VST2 (.dll, including VSTi instruments)	Every DLL is opened and its PE export table is read. Only files that genuinely export a VST entry point are reported — so your system DLLs never pollute the list.
VST3	.vst3 files and .vst3 bundle folders
CLAP	.clap plugins
AAX	.aaxplugin bundles (Pro Tools)
LV2	.lv2 bundles

For each one you get name, format, architecture (x86/x64/ARM64), size, vendor, version, date and full path, plus notes — including genuine duplicates and dead leftovers from uninstalled plugins.

Getting started

1. Download VSTective.exe from Releases and double-click it. No installer, no runtime to fetch, nothing written to your registry. It runs from a USB stick.
2. Hit QUICK SCAN — a couple of seconds, covers all the standard plugin folders plus any VST paths configured in your registry or Reaper config.
3. Or hit FULL SCAN to sweep entire drives, including removable ones, for plugins hiding somewhere unusual.
4. Export ▾ → Plugin folder list gives you the folders, ready to paste into your DAW.

First run is slow — that's Windows, not the app. The first time you run a freshly downloaded, unsigned executable, Windows checks it against Microsoft's cloud reputation service, which can pause things for up to about 30 seconds. You may also see a blue SmartScreen box: click More info → Run anyway. Every run after that is instant. This is normal for small independent tools; the only cure is a code-signing certificate costing hundreds of dollars a year. The source is right here if you'd rather build it yourself.

Features

• Quick Scan — the usual plugin folders, in seconds
• Full Scan — every selected drive, fixed or removable, scanned in parallel
• Plugin folder list export — the whole point: what to paste into Reaper / Gig Performer
• Duplicate detection — the same plugin in the same format installed in two places. A plugin shipped as both VST3 and AAX is not counted as a duplicate
• 32-bit filter — instantly spot plugins that won't load in a 64-bit host
• Empty-bundle detection — leftover stubs from uninstalled plugins
• Snapshot & compare — save a scan, then after installing something, see exactly what was added, removed, moved or changed
• Export to CSV, HTML, or plain text — honouring your current filter and selection
• Reveal in Explorer — select many plugins, get one window per folder with them highlighted
• Sortable, filterable, dark UI that remembers your settings in a portable .ini

Keyboard

Key	Action
Enter	Open containing folder
Ctrl + C	Copy path(s)
Ctrl + F	Jump to filter box
Ctrl + A	Select all
F5	Rescan
Esc	Cancel scan / clear filter

Command line

Useful for scheduled scans and scripting:

VSTective.exe --quick --out plugins.csv
VSTective.exe --quick --folders --out folders.txt
VSTective.exe --scan all --out report.html
VSTective.exe --scan "D:\My Plugins" --out report.txt
VSTective.exe --quick --snapshot before.vstsnap
VSTective.exe --quick --compare before.vstsnap --out changes.txt

--scan all covers every ready fixed and removable drive. Output format follows the file extension. Extra flags: --folders, --threads N, --includewindows.

Building it yourself

One source file, compiled with the C# compiler already built into Windows — no Visual Studio, no SDK, no NuGet:

Build.bat

Requires .NET Framework 4.8, which ships with Windows 10 (May 2019 update) and Windows 11.

Notes and limits

• Windows only. macOS plugins use a different binary format entirely.
• Folders you lack permission to read are skipped silently.
• A VST2? row means a DLL couldn't be read (usually locked by a running DAW) — worth a look.
• DirectX (DX) plugins are registered COM objects rather than scannable files, so they aren't included.
• A full drive sweep reads a lot of files. If you keep large sample libraries, expect it to take a while — that's what Quick Scan is for.

Licence

MIT — free and open source, do what you like with it.