What's new in Plugr
1.0.35 — Bulk actions apply to everything you picked
A fix for anything you do to several plugins at once. Selecting a group and choosing an action from the right-click menu would only visibly change one of them — the rest were saved correctly but kept showing their old state until the app was restarted. Ignoring updates across a selection made it obvious, because the plugins you'd just un-ignored stayed sitting there ignored.
This affected marking a group as favourites and hiding a group too, so it's worth updating even if you never use the ignore actions.
1.0.34 — Say no to a paid upgrade once
Mostly about the updates you don't want. If a developer has moved to a new major version and you haven't bought it, Plugr should stop bringing it up — and until now it couldn't really do that.
Ignore major upgrades
- A new option, next to the existing ignore actions, for the case where the only newer release is a whole major version ahead — usually a paid upgrade rather than a free patch
- It stays quiet for every release of that major, not just the one you dismissed. Ignoring a single update pinned one exact version number, so the next time the developer shipped a small fix the plugin started asking again
- You still hear about updates within the version you own, which "ignore all updates" would have silenced too
- If you ever do buy the upgrade, it switches itself back on. Nothing to remember
Right-click menus work on several plugins at once
- Ignoring updates now works on a selection. Most plugins are installed in three or four formats, so silencing one upgrade used to mean doing it three or four times
- Favourites and hiding are proper toggles — you can un-favourite and unhide a group, which previously only worked one plugin at a time
- You can point a whole selection at another plugin's updates in one go, so every format of a plugin follows one source
Better update sources
- When Plugr works out how to read a developer's page, it no longer cuts words in half while doing it. The patterns it saves are more precise, and less likely to find the wrong number on a page later
- If you let Plugr share an update source you've found, that now actually reaches the shared registry. It had been failing quietly, which means the sources people contributed never arrived. Fixed, and it now says so when something goes wrong instead of staying silent
- Sources found by "Find missing sources" are shared too. Only that one button was ever able to fill in most of a library, and it was the one that didn't pass anything on
1.0.33 — Update checking that actually knows
A long pass over the one thing Plugr exists to do: tell you which of your plugins are out of date. Most of this is invisible until you open the app and find that several thousand plugins have a real answer next to them instead of a shrug. Everything between 1.0.0 and here is rolled into this entry.
Far more of your library gets a real answer
- Thousands of new and repaired update sources in the built-in registry — Voxengo, Kilohearts, Antares, FabFilter, Arturia, Plugin Alliance, Polyverse, Wavesfactory, Valhalla DSP, Native Instruments, iZotope, Baby Audio and plenty more
- Plugr can now read version pages that are built by JavaScript or sitting behind a bot check. Those used to be invisible to it, so the plugin just showed as unchecked — Valhalla DSP and A1Audio are two that work now
- Developer-wide sources for companies that ship their whole catalog on one version number, so their new plugins are covered the day they appear rather than whenever we get round to adding them
- Legacy versions get their own line. If you own FabFilter Pro-C 2, Plugr checks the last Pro-C 2 build rather than telling you Pro-C 3 exists and calling that an update
Fewer wrong answers
- Some plugins don't report their own version — a few AAX builds just carry a wrapper number, and a handful of others report nothing at all. Plugr used to compare that number anyway and announce an update that wasn't real. It now says it can't tell, and shows you the version the developer publishes so you can compare by eye
- Fixed a batch of sources that were quietly pointing at the wrong product — a different plugin from the same company, or a newer paid version of the one you own
- "Find missing sources" now checks its own work before saving anything. It used to accept any version-shaped number near the plugin's name, which on a marketing page can be a star rating, a system requirement, or another product's version. It now requires real evidence and tells you how many candidates it threw out
A clearer picture of what actually needs you
- Update status is now grouped by what you'd do about it: Updates available, Up to date, Check manually (the developer publishes no version Plugr can read, but it knows the page), No source yet, and Check failed. The single "Unknown" bucket lumped all of those together and made Plugr look like it had no idea about plugins it knew perfectly well
- Hover any filter for a one-line explanation of what it means and what to do about it. You can turn the hints off in Preferences
- The toolbar shows what share of your library Plugr can check automatically
- Uninstallers, format shells and helper binaries aren't plugins, so they no longer sit in your library pretending to need an update. They're under Hidden if you want them, and there's a preference to bring them back
Apple Silicon and the Rosetta deadline
- Apple removes Rosetta in macOS 28. Plugr now flags every Intel-only plugin you own and tells you plainly that it stops working then — worth knowing before it happens mid-session rather than after
- It separates the ones you'd actually lose from the ones that are just a stale leftover sitting next to a native copy of the same plugin, which you can delete today
- Where a newer version exists, it says so — developers usually went native in a normal release, so updating is often the whole fix
1.0.0 — Initial public release
The first public version of Plugr. Here's everything in the box:
Library
- Scans VST2, VST3, AU, AAX and CLAP plugins from the standard Mac folders
- Scans your /Applications folder so you can keep all your standalone apps organized and up-to-date too.
- Grid and sortable list views, with resizable columns
- Filter by category, format, developer, update status, tags, or favorites
- Tags, favorites, hide, and personal notes per plugin
- Custom categories you can add yourself
- Bulk edit hundreds of plugins at once (rename developer, retag, recategorize, set update source)
- Reorderable sidebar sections via drag-and-drop
- Fast search across all your plugins
- Duplicate detection — spot older versions sitting next to new ones
- One-click Move to Trash with confirmation
- Multi-format awareness — set a tag, category, or source on one format and the others inherit it
Projects
- Scans .als, .logicx, and .flp project files from your Ableton Live, Logic Pro, and FL Studio sessions
- Auto-detects tempo and project key from every session
- Three analytics charts at the top of the tab — shows you your most-used plugins, plugin categories, and developers you rely on — each clickable to filter the project list
- Per-project ratings (A–F), customizable workflow statuses ("Rough Concept", "In Progress", "Needs Mixing", "Released"), tags, and notes
- Filter by tempo range, key, rating, status, tags, or free-text search
- Preview bounces (wav, mp3, etc.) auto-discovered from your project folder
- Inline waveform player with click-to-seek, drag-to-scrub, space + arrow shortcuts, and auto-advance to the next bounce
- Drag any audio file onto a project to attach it as a bounce; drag a single project file onto Plugr to scan just that one
Companion Apps
- Dedicated tab showing every plugin manager on your Mac as a card grid
- Each card displays the app icon, shows how many plugins it manages, and how many have pending updates
- One-click launchers for Native Access, Waves Central, Splice, Plugin Alliance Installer, iZotope Product Portal, and more
- Sortable by name, plugins managed, or updates pending
Updates
- Built-in coverage for hundreds of developers (FabFilter, Soundtoys, Native Instruments, iZotope, Valhalla, UAD, Plugin Alliance, Cableguys, Xfer Records, and many more)
- In-app "Find update source" flow for developers Plugr doesn't recognize — choose auto-search or manual entry, confirm in one click, and Plugr remembers for next time
- "Major upgrade" badge for big version jumps
- "Open companion app" status for plugins managed through vendor plugin managers
- Edit or remove saved sources anytime
- Opt-in community feed: working sources users submit flow back into a shared pool, making Plugr better with every update
Deals
- Pulls live deals from trusted retailers like Plugin Boutique and Audio Plugin Deals
- Filter to deals on plugins and developers you already own
- Wishlist, dismiss, and sort by discount/price/newest
- Local-currency display in USD, EUR, GBP, JPY
- Low-price badges based on collected price history
- Purchases made via the Deals tab may provide affiliate commissions to the developer of Plugr
Deal Alerts
- Watch any plugin, developer, or custom keyword for matching deals — works even for plugins you don't own yet
- Native macOS notifications when a watch fires, with 24-hour dedupe so you're never bombarded
- Bell icons on every plugin detail, every developer name, and every deal card — flip watches on or off from anywhere
- "N new" badge on the Deals tab counts deals you haven't seen yet
- "My Deal Alerts…" management modal with pause / delete controls per watch
- Optional menu-bar mode keeps Plugr alive in the background so alerts keep firing when the window's closed
- Optional launch-at-login pairs with menu-bar mode for fully hands-off deal monitoring
Producer Tools
- Tap tempo (with spacebar support)
- BPM ↔ delay calculator for any BPM and any note value
- Camelot wheel for harmonic mixing
Themes, sync, and the rest
- Eleven themes — Light, Dark, Auto, plus eight studio palettes inspired by your favorite DAWs
- Optional iCloud sync for tags, favorites, projects, sources, and settings
- Backup and restore as a single file
- CSV library export
- Universal binary for Apple Silicon and Intel
- Requires macOS 12 Monterey or later
Future releases will be listed above this. If you want to be notified about new versions, the app checks for updates automatically once it's installed. You can also follow along on the about page or email hello@plugr.co anytime.