My symbols gone, how to re-add them

[SembazuruCDE]

First, please verify what version you are using? The best way is to go to the About window, click on the button at the bottom labeled “Copy Version Info” and then do a clip-board paste (CTRL-v) into your response here.

For example (and to provide context for the rest of my answer) here is my version information: (And as of this writing this is the latest official stable version available for Windows. Version 5.1.5 is on the horizon, but not available yet. Any other version is either an older and unsupported version, or a newer development version that may have weird bugs and incomplete features.)
Application: KiCad
Version: (5.1.4)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.61.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1 (WinSSL) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.6 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) nghttp2/1.34.0
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.68.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.61.1
Compiler: GCC 8.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON

(Note, there is a known bug on Windows computers where the OS incorrectly identifies itself to running processes so that is why on my Win10 system the platform is reported as Win8…)

@Zom-B

After RTFM-ing I found I had to go to ‘Manage Symbol Libraries’. I couldn’t find it anywhere in the symbol editor, but selecting ‘Manage Footprint Libraries’, which looked out of place in the Symbol editor, took me to the Symbol libraries (WTF#4). There I first couldn’t find the library named after my directory, and after many times spitting around, finding that the libraries are stored in a file named ‘fp-lib-table’ I found that in the file it’s at the bottom. And lo and behold, it’s at the bottom too in the Symbol libraries list! It was there all along, just not sorted the same way as the tree list in the Symbol editor! (WTF#5).

I think you are confusing symbols with footprints. In my symbol editor I see the ‘Manage Symbol Libraries’ menu entry:

Any changes I make in the Symbol Libraries window will go into the ‘sym-lib-table’ in my %APPDATA%\kicad folder. Changes to the Footprint Libraries window will go into the ‘fp-lib-table’ that you are referring to.

You have read this FAQ entry, right?

Library management in KiCad version 5

Disclaimer: screenshots taken in nightly from between version 5.0 and 5.1. Version 5.0.x looks slightly different. Version 5.1.x will look like the screenshots show. This is a detailed lecture. If you want to know how to simply add some assets you downloaded to KiCad then you can read the shorter tutorial How to get a downloaded symbol, footprint or full library into KiCad version 5? Summary KiCad does not automatically detect libraries! There is no special library location (you might still ca…