Screenshots and Video: How to safely enable VST, VST3 and AU Plugins in macOS. De-quarantine a Plugin: sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine (Catalina,
Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura)
Gatekeeper has become much stricter in MacOS Catalina (and
later), causing problems especially with plugins.
Apple has introduced quarantine extended attribute called
com.apple.quarantine which is set on every file downloaded
from the Internet.
Therefore, depending on your security settings, if you try
to install the plugins and a pop-up warning appears ("File
damaged", "Cannot be opened", etc.), you can safely enable
these plugins:
Screenshots
1.- Type the following in the Terminal:
sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine
(note the space at the end)
2.- Click on the
Library
folder.
3.- Click on the Audio folder
4.- Click on the Plug-ins folder
5.- Click on the Components, VST or VST3 folder
6.- Drag and drop the *.component, *.vst or *.vst3 plugin
into the Terminal window right after the space of the above
command (step 1).
7.- After drop it, press your 'return' key
8.- Authenticate with your admin password.
9.- Done. The AU, VST and/or VST3 plugin should now be
visible in your DAW.
For Gatekeeper, Apple has introduced quarantine
extended attribute called
com.apple.quarantine which is
set on every file downloaded
from the Internet. This
attribute is set by the browser
when you download a file with
it.
If you get an ominous message that an AU/VST/VST3
plug-in "cannot be opened",
"file damaged", etc. when you
try to use or install it, this
workaround will fix it.
Examples of the line of code
in your Terminal, depending on your plugin path:
VST
The VST plug-ins usually go into the shared Library that's used by all
users. So the VST path is:
