You will learn how to hide images in FL Studio’s Browser. Sometimes you may have duplicate images in FL Studio’s Browser (Plugin Database).

The short answer is we need to hide the images in FL Studio’s Database. You can manually do this by selecting images, right-click, select properties, and going “Hidden”.. but it’s very tedious.

I show an automatic fix through a CMD command (Command Prompt) to remove all duplicate images in FL Studio’s Browser Plugin Database

READ: How to Organize Plugin Database

How to Fix Duplicate Images in FL Studio’s Plugin Database

How to Fix Duplicate Images in FL Studio:

If you notice duplicate plugins in the Plugin database, this can be caused by the .png files not being hidden.

Or, you may have to “combine VST2 and VST3” versions to not see duplicate plugins in FL Studio.

Here’s how you fix duplicate plugins caused by .png files not being hidden:

Showing duplicate plugin images in plugin database in FL Studio
Duplicate plugins being shown because the .png file is visible. This article will teach you two ways to fix duplicated images.. a manual way, and a fast way!

First, it’s important to know the normal operation of how to add a plugin to the Plugin database in FL Studio.

Each plugin’s top-left menu has the option to “Add to plugin database (flag as favorite)”.

“Add to plugin database (flag as favorite)” takes a “snapshot” of the plugin which saves that current state of the plugin, and even creates an image of how it looked before added! (Play audio in FL Studio before you add a plugin to make it look cooler!) Now we can reuse our plugins easily in our projects!

To save yourself time when organizing your vsts, if you already make the folder, and highlight it in the FL Studio Browser, “Add to plugin data (flag as favorite)” will save it in that highlighted folder for you!

Plugin database location to save plugins

Now, where does the Plugin database save files in FL Studio.. and what types of files are created?

FL Studio 12 and newer uses the Plugin database which allows Windows/Mac users to have the same folder structure in Documents -> Image-Line folder! I really like the improvement!

First, access the Plugin database in your Documents. The folder path will be something like this:

C:\Users\[*YOUR USERNAME*]\Documents\Image-Line\FL Studio\Presets\Plugin database

Inside here you will see:

  • Effects
  • Generators
  • Installed

The Effects and Generators folders are for us users to customize. Open Effects or Generators until you are able to see the various “.fst, .nfo, and .png” files. You will see each plugin gets 3 files.

You can see each plugin has 3 files, and that the .png file is darkened (hidden). This is what you want a plugin to look like. Remember, more plugins does not = better producer.. I included two different EQs I like to show the similar files structure.

Now to the problem.. why the duplicated images in the Plugin database, and how to fix them.

The quick is that somehow the .png file becomes visible. We only want the .fst file visible, which is how FL Studio normally creates these 3 files (.fst, .nfo, .png) for you when using “Add to plugin database (flag as favorite)”.

If you want to manually hide every .png (on Windows), you can simply right-click the .png file, go Properties, then select “Hidden”, then click apply.

Manually hiding a .png is an option if you only have a few duplicated Plugin database images. If you have more, see below for how to hide all .png files to remove duplicate images.

Automatically Hide All .png Files in Plugin Database

Warning, we are going to be using the command line (cmd), and I am not liable for any problems that may happen if you follow this tutorial. Use at your own risk! Make sure your file paths are correct, and make sure you only hide .png files in the proper folders, otherwise you can hide files that you didn’t intend to…. Make sure you backup before hand, and I even suggest creating a folder on your desktop to practice with. (Try creating a couple sub folders with pictures to make sure that you are hiding .png files only in the folders you intend to).

On windows, if you open the cmd, this is where we write this code twice. First for the Effects folder, then second for the Generators folder. (Do not touch the “Installed” folder).

install-plugins-fl-studio-open-cmd
This is what cmd “Command Prompt” software looks like. Just type “cmd” in Windows search to find it.

If you don’t know any command line stuff, I’ll show you some basics, without getting technical.

You will be using cd and dir to navigate folders in cmd “Comand Prompt”.

(cd is the change directory command and dir displays a list of files and subfolders to help you navigate around folders easily! .. Pro-tip, if you hit tab after cd and a space, it will automatically type a folder for you!)

Here’s an example:

cd "C:\Users\YOUR-USERNAME\Documents\Image-Line\FL Studio\Presets\Plugin database\Effects"

When you replace YOUR-USERNAME, this would bring you to the Effects folder inside cmd “Command Prompt”.

While being inside the Effects folder, we want to say, “Please hide every .png file in the Effects folder, and all of its sub-folders”.

We do that with commands and parameters .. It’s easy, I’ll show you!

Adding Commands + Parameters

Once we are in our directory (Effects folder.. remember to do the same for Generators folder), we will then apply the attrib command and adjust a couple parameters.

To do that, look at my command below:

attrib "*.png" +h /s
  • attrib “*.png” (this command says apply attributes on every “*.png” file .. * is wild card meaning any file name with .png will be selected)
  • /s (this parameter says apply this change to every “*.png” file in the main folder, and any sub-folders inside the main folder)
  • +h (this parameter says when you find a .png file, hide it.. (+h) hides the file.. (-h) shows the file)

After you apply this, give it a second or two, then you’ll see the .png files become be darkened if you have “View hidden files and folders” in Windows turned on. You can confirm a file is hidden by right-clicking and selecting Properties like shown above in my image.

That’s it.. not too bad

I mainly wrote this for me to remember at a later date. I am preparing for more FL Studio courses and tutorials, and getting FL Studio set up on my laptop and an old PC for testing purposes.

I noticed all .png images of my plugins in the Plugin database were somehow set to visible, and I remembered this auto-hide all .png files trick I used to use, but I couldn’t remember how it worked.. there you go.

Remember, first use cd to go to the directory, then when you apply the attrib command with the parameters explained above, it will only pertain to that folder, and its sub-folders, and is much safer this way so you don’t alter any unwanted folders or files, and *.png means all files with .png in the main folder (Effects or Generators folder) and its sub-folders.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below.