Libraries location on Arduino

Projects Programming
1

Hello community,

Whenever a library is installed in the Arduino IDE, in which directory is it placed, because there are some, like in program(x86)/Arduino/libraries

or documents/Arduino/libraries or

users/name/AppData/local/Arduino/libraries, as well as in Onedrive/documents/Arduino/libraries and so on.

Often, when installing a github library from a zip file, I get the message that it's not a valid file because it's missing .h or .cpp, so the installation doesn't take place.

I don't know how all this works in the Arduino IDE. Can someone explain to me where the libraries are installed or how and where they can be installed manually?

Thanks for help
Regards

2

In general, the IDE expects to find libraries in folders within the libraries folder in the Sketchbook folder. This is the default library location. There are, however, exceptions to this in the case of libraries installed as part of a board package and the built in libraries that come with the IDE

When you install a library using the Library Manager it will be installed in the default location and you can do the same thing manually by creating a folder for the library in the default location and copying the library files to it

3

In which case it's more than likely not a library. Can you give an example?

4

Hi sterretje,

like here:

5

That library installs for me from the .zip file downloaded from GitHub

Exactly how did you download it and install it ?
Which version of the IDE are you using ?

6

Install as zip file
Arduino 1.8.18

7

I have unzip it to a folder with the same name and copy it to all Arduino libraries folders that i found on my pc and it works now.

8

It only needs to go in the default library folder

9

Where is the location of the default Arduino libraries folder?

10

See my earlier reply

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11

mine is C:\Users\hallowed\Documents\Arduino\sketchbook\libraries

I seem to recall that "sketchbook" should be in all lower case, ie not "Sketchbook"

Edited to include the libraries part, oops

13

The name of the folder does not matter

Mine is C:\Users\Bob2\Documents\Arduino

What matters is that the Sketchbook folder in IDE Preferences is correct, ie
image

In this context the word Sketchbook is used to mean what is entered in Preferences

2 Likes
14

Doesn't it default to the way I have it when you install the IDE? I don't remember.

15

It is such a long time ago that I first installed the IDE that I can't remember but, as I say, the Sketchbook folder name does not matter

1 Like
16

I knew something had to be all lowercase, foruming after a 24 hour shift has its drawbacks, I guess.

17

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