Managing content in Places

You can add folders containing samples, clips, and other media used in your Ableton Live Sets to the Places section of Live's Browser for quick access.

Adding a folder to Places

Click on Add Folder... to point Live to the desired directory. Alternatively, you can drag the desired folder from Finder(Mac)/Explorer(Win) and drop it below the existing Places folders.

Live will start scanning the folder and any subfolders contained within and progressively list all the available files. The time necessary to complete the scanning depends on the amount of files and folders contained in the added directory. A spinning wheel next to the Places label indicates that the scanning procedure is still in progress. In the meantime, it is still possible to keep working within Live.

Note: Only add discrete content folders to Places rather than entire hard drives. Adding entire hard drives and large folders can cause indexing to be slow, or Places may need to continually re-index the content.

Removing folders from Places

To remove a folder right click/CMD Click a folder and select Remove from Sidebar.

Locating missing folders in Places

In case you've moved a folder on your hard drive it will display as greyed out in Places. To point Places to the new location, right click on the folder, then select Locate Folder and choose the correct folder location. Once the folder is added, it will re-index and display correctly.

No content shown in Places

If Places shows no content, this might be happening for a number of reasons:

1. If you've just added a folder to Places and it contains a large amount of data, it may take a while for Live's indexer to properly read and index the relevant content. You'll know that Live is done indexing when the wheel next to the "Places" label has stopped spinning. 
2. Make sure no other instance of Live is running, as opening more than one instance of Live will disable the entire browser. Close all open instances of Live, then re-open just one instance of Live.

3. Avoid using special characters like: ? [ ] / \ = + < > ; : " , | *. in the name of the folder  as these can cause issues with the folder appearing in Places.

4. Make sure the folders you add contain files that Live can use. Only content which can be loaded in Live will be displayed in the browser: this includes audio files, MIDI files, Max for Live Devices, Live Presets (.adg), Live Sets (.als).
5. Make sure the audio files contained in these folders have a valid file extension: while these files will work fine if imported directly into Live via drag and drop, the browser will not show any samples without a file extension. File extensions are hidden by default on most operating systems, so it might not be immediately possible to find out if your files contain one. Here's how to display file extensions on Windows and on Mac.

6. If you're storing your files in a cloud-synced folder, make sure that the files are available locally (on your computer) at all times. Some services may offer the option to only store references to those files on your computer, while the actual file itself resides in the cloud. In those instances Live will not be able to locate the file, as it does not physically reside on your computer.  See our full guide on Cloud Storage Best Practices.

Scanning of folders is slow or content keeps re-indexing

1. If you have Norton Antivirus installed, it can interfere with the content indexing. Either temporarily disable Norton Antivirus while adding content to places, or uninstall the program entirely.
2. Only add discrete content folders to Places rather than entire hard drives. Adding entire hard drives or very large folders can cause indexing to be slow, or Places may need to continually re-index the content.