How to organize the libraries inside the Arduino IDE libraries folder?

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hello,

I want to organize my Arduino IDE libraries folder. There are now a lot of libraries, and I want to sort them in groups for more easier to use. And I can have easier accessibility to libs folders.

I know if I put the folders inside another folder then they are not available for Arduino anymore.

Is there a way to do that ?

Thanks,

2

There isn't a good way to do this unfortunately.

I guess you could store your libraries in a separate folder in any structure you like and then add symlinks (or whatever the Windows equivalent is called, directory junction?) to your libraries folder pointing to the actual folders that contain the libraries. That seems like it would be a lot of extra work though.

There is a pull request to add the functionality you are requesting:

As well as a feature request for it:

3

Thanks for the link, it was really interesting but I didn't learn much of a thing.

I got the keyword you mentioned "junction directory", searched for that on google, youtube.

I found a explanation on to do "junction directory", tried to do it, I could develop the junction with command "mklink" but I guess I don't know how to do it !!

Here's what I did:

  1. I developed a folder in the Arduino main directory, to hold all the libraries. I moved the libraries from the original "libraries" folder to "junction_libraries".
  2. I tried to do the links from this new folder to the original "libraries" folder, but it's the same each link would point to the "libraries" folder and all the libraries goes there, so what's the point ? It's like I didn't do anything.
4

I not advise move the folder the libraries.

5

wolfrose:
so what's the point ?

The point is that, although the junction links are still required to all be in the root of {sketchbook folder}/libraries, the junction targets can be in any arbitrary location on your computer. This means that you can organize the libraries any way you like in subfolders of junction_libraries, which is exactly what your goal was.

SandroMesquita:
I not advise move the folder the libraries.

Why not?

6

wolfrose:
I tried to do the links from this new folder to the original "libraries" folder

You got it backwards. You need to move the library folders to the "junction_libraries" folder, organize them any way you like in subfolders of the "junction_libraries" folder, then add junction links to the "libraries" folder to the location of each library folder under the "junction_libraries" folder.

7

wolfrose:
Thanks for the link, it was really interesting but I didn't learn much of a thing.

The only thing I intended you to learn from those links is that other people want this feature too, the Arduino developers are aware of it, and an attempt has even been made to add the feature.

8

pert:
The point is that, although the junction links are still required to all be in the root of {sketchbook folder}/libraries, the junction targets can be in any arbitrary location on your computer. This means that you can organize the libraries any way you like in subfolders of junction_libraries, which is exactly what your goal was.

Why not?

I am can add a libraries in any folder of the my computer?

9

SandroMesquita:
I am can add a libraries in any folder of the my computer?

Yes, as long as you put a symbolic link or junction directory to that folder in {sketchbook folder}/libraries.

I'm not necessarily recommending that everyone do this. It's just the only possible workaround I can think of that allows what wolfrose wants to do.

I would prefer if the Arduino IDE would support subfolders in the libraries folder. In my libraries folder, I have custom libraries I wrote and need to be careful not to delete, I have libraries that are dependencies of my projects which I want to avoid deleting so I don't need to install them again, and I have dozens of random libraries that I installed to use one time when providing support here on the forum. It is a lot of work to delete the unwanted libraries from my libraries folder without deleting the libraries I want to keep. If I could put the libraries I want to keep in separate folders, this task would be simple.

10

pert:
Yes, as long as you put a symbolic link or junction directory to that folder in {sketchbook folder}/libraries.

I'm not necessarily recommending that everyone do this. It's just the only possible workaround I can think of that allows what wolfrose wants to do.

I would prefer if the Arduino IDE would support subfolders in the libraries folder. In my libraries folder, I have custom libraries I wrote and need to be careful not to delete, I have libraries that are dependencies of my projects which I want to avoid deleting so I don't need to install them again, and I have dozens of random libraries that I installed to use one time when providing support here on the forum. It is a lot of work to delete the unwanted libraries from my libraries folder without deleting the libraries I want to keep. If I could put the libraries I want to keep in separate folders, this task would be simple.

I got it, thanks.