MAC OS path to plugins…

Layout
1

I’m on Mac OS and kicad 8.x and don’t know why I all of sudden can’t use any plugins or find where plugins are located (I have run for long time all settings and libraries on external ssd and have not moved anything from teher) – and in kicad the “settings/pcb editor/action plugins” list is empty. is it a .json file in the preference/kicad folder where I can find this or how? thanks.

2

Solved. ChatGPT fixed it in a few seconds.

3

Perhaps you could share ChatGPT’s fix here so that the thread may help others who encounter the same issue in the future.

4

Ok here we go:

Fix (macOS, KiCad 8/9): point KiCad’s plugin folder to your external drive

KiCad loads action plugins from:

~/Library/Preferences/kicad//scripting/plugins

If your plugins live on an external disk this might be your preferred path (e.g. /Volumes/ExternalSSD/KicadStuff/KC_Plugins), make a symlink per KiCad version:

Symlink Terminal code:

# Replace <ver> with 8.0, 9.0, 9.99, etc.

VER=9.0

SRC="/Volumes/ExternalSSD/KicadStuff/KC_Plugins"

DEST="$HOME/Library/Preferences/kicad/$VER/scripting"



mkdir -p "$DEST"

rm -f "$DEST/plugins"

ln -s "$SRC" "$DEST/plugins"



# (optional but helpful)

xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine "$SRC" 2>/dev/null

chmod -R a+r "$SRC"

Notes:

  • Ensure the external volume is mounted before launching KiCad.

  • Each plugin should be a folder or .py file directly inside KC_Plugins/ and include an ActionPlugin class.