Live installation and library locations

Where Live keeps its app resources, its library folders and its own databases, and how livesaver finds them without being told. Everything below was read on a Mac; Windows is at the end, from Ableton's documentation.

App

• /Applications/Ableton Live <n> <Edition>.app
  • version in Contents/Info.plist → CFBundleShortVersionString, e.g. 12.4.6 (2026-09-10_0de5c8fa9a)
  • bundle id com.ableton.live
• Contents/App-Resources/:
  • Core Library/: a pack with id www.ableton.com/0
  • Builtin/: RelativePathType 7
  • Database/filerefmap.db: SQLite, read-only
• With several Live apps installed, livesaver takes the one with the highest version in its Info.plist (the name is not reliable).

filerefmap.db (Live's remap table for moved library files)

• sample_mapping(src_type, src_packid, src_ref, dst_type, dst_packid, dst_ref)
  • 37,617 rows in 12.4.6: type 2→5 (35,610), 5→5 (1,973), 5→7 (32), 7→7 (2)
• pack_names(packid, packname): 81 rows
• meta_info
• Lookup: by (type, packid or '', norm(ref)); chains are followed for up to 5 steps.
• Destination:
  • type 7 → Builtin/dst
  • type 5 + Core Library → Core Library/dst
  • type 5 + known pack → Factory Packs/<pack_names[id]>/dst

Preferences: ~/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live <x.y.z>/

• Library.cfg (XML):

  <ContentLibrary>
    <UserLibrary><LibraryProject Id="0"><ProjectLocation /><ProjectName Value="User Library" />
      <ProjectPath Value="/Users/you/Music/Ableton" /></LibraryProject></UserLibrary>
    <SliceInfoList>
      <LibrarySliceInfo Id="10576" Path="/Users/you/Music/Ableton/Factory Packs/Drum Essentials"
                        DisplayName="Drum Essentials" UniqueId="www.ableton.com/249" />
    </SliceInfoList>
    <UserFolderInfoList /><PreferredFactoryPacksInstallationPath Value="" />
  

  So the User Library is ProjectPath + '/' + ProjectName, and each pack's location comes by id from SliceInfoList. Oddity: UniqueId="www.ableton.com/M4L Big Three".
• Preferences.cfg: binary, magic AB 1E 56 78.
• Log.txt: check it after opening changed Sets, for "corrupt" and "Unknown class".
• Options.txt: -_RelaxFileManagerSearch.
• PluginScanner.txt, Indexer.txt, Crash/.

Packs

<pack>/Ableton Folder Info/Properties.cfg:

• starts with Ableton#04I, then text
• String PackUniqueID = "www.ableton.com/249"; and String PackDisplayName = "Drum Essentials";
• also ProductId, PackMajorVersion, …

livesaver reads these two values with simple patterns and falls back to the folder name.

Live's databases: ~/Library/Application Support/Ableton/Live Database/

• Live-plugins-1.db (Live 12.1+):
  • plugins(plugin_id, module_id, dev_identifier, name, vendor, version, sdk_version, flags, scanstate, subcategories, enabled)
  • plugin_modules(module_id, path, arch 2=VST2/3=VST3, processor 1=Intel|2=Apple Silicon, scanstate, fingerprint); fingerprint = hex(exe size):hex(mtime)
  • plugin_domains, version
  • No AU rows.
• Live-files-<n>.db (browser index, e.g. Live-files-12300.db):
  • files(file_id, name, parent_id, file_type FourCC, file_size, mod_date) plus places and an FTS index; no CRC
  • paths come from a recursive CTE over parent_id
• Safe reading:
  • The databases are in WAL mode. Opening one plainly read-only failed, and ?mode=ro&immutable=1 can return a stale snapshot after a crash.
  • livesaver copies .db plus -wal/-shm to a temp folder and opens the copy.
  • Where there is no SQLite (a page in a browser), the plug-in database is read from the file itself (readSqliteTable, parsePluginDatabase): the table pages, with the committed pages of the -wal file in place of the database's, as SQLite reads them. On a real database (269 plug-ins, 288 modules) it gives the rows SQLite gives.

Other roots

• ~/Music/Ableton/User Library and ~/Music/Ableton/Factory Packs: Live's defaults (livesaver reads the real ones from Library.cfg)
• /Users/Shared: Native Instruments content from Native Access (a vendor library: files re-saved by the vendor match by size and CRC as described in fingerprints.md)
• preferred roots for tie-breaks (configurable, e.g. your own sample folder first)

Windows

Not seen on a Windows computer: these places are the ones Ableton documents, and livesaver looks there (packages/node/src/live.ts, live-plugins.ts).

• Version: Windows has no Info.plist; livesaver takes the number in the folder's name (12).
• Library.cfg: its paths are slashed when read (C:\Users\… becomes C:/Users/…).
• Plug-ins: only the plug-in database is read. Its processor column is ignored there (one kind of processor, no Rosetta), and so is the plug-in's own file.
• What livesaver removes goes to %LOCALAPPDATA%\livesaver\Trash, not to the Recycle Bin: asked to recycle without a question, Windows deletes for good what the bin cannot take (so its documentation of file operations says; packages/node/src/write.ts).
• Whether Live runs: tasklist /FO CSV /NH, a line that starts with "Ableton Live . (Ableton Index.exe is not Live.)