MSFS Addons Linker

[jmig]

Like many of you, I use Addons Linker to keep track of my various sceneries, aircraft, etc. I find MSFS loads much faster when I only activate the aircraft and scenery I will use for a given flight. Well, I decided that since so much money and life was tied up in Addons Linker I should back up all the data folders. Much to my surprise they came to 589 GBs of data.

Who would of thought that I managed to accumlate over one half a terrabyte of data addons. I backed up to a usb 3.0 portable drive. This morning, after running all night, it was still at only 80% complete.

[Tom Clayton]

My Community folder is just under 80 GB and I sometimes feel like I need to clean it out!

[DennyA]

Tom, you're missing a ton of beautiful free scenery.

I'm at 1.69TB for my Addons Linker data folder. 1,357,283 files! Insanity.

But man, I can fly into a lot of beautifully modeled airports!

[Tom Clayton]

I guess I'm a boring old curmudgeon, but I just have a few favorite routes that I fly due to my interest in either the location itself, or the scenery enroute. The Hawaiian Islands, PNW, So-Cal, and Caribbean have received the most love in my sim so far, but I also do a few routes in Europe if I can get up early enough - I like to fly day VFR, and I usually stick to real time/weather.

[MZee1960]

I think things will be better once MSFS2024 comes out, as more 'stuff' will be kept in the cloud, leaving additional space on the user's drives.

It would probably be possible to add a portable drive to the system, linked to the sim via the AOLinker, should space eventually be at a premium.

[FrankPilot]

I too love the Linker. MSFS and stuff I buy through the MSFS store are on my 1TB C Drive which was getting a bit full. Other payware and freeware are on my even bigger 2 TB D Drive. And I have an external 4TB Drive ready to go! Can’t get enough of MSFS - bring on 2024! Cheers.

[manfredc3]

I have been using the Add-on Linker for MSFS ever since I started to accumulate more sceneries/airports.

I had a folder on a separate 1TB drive just for the flight simulator add-ons. Another 500GB SSD for additional add-ons, and then had to keep som ad-ons on a 3rd SSD that was originally meant to only have the actual flight Simulators, like FS2020, Xp-Plane 11/12 P3D and FSX on it.I realised a few months ago that the drive was getting full, and had to remove som files to allow other ones to be added.

This was getting messy, so I ended up buying a Toshibe 6TB Performance Gaming HDD, and moved all the add-ons from different locations to dedicated -simulator specific- folders.

Now it's so much easier to manage add-ons in Add-0n linker (I use a similar program for X-Plane 12) and only load those needed for the flight I am about to enjoy. It keeps load times to a minimum.

Yes, I was able to manage my add-ons through Addon Linker in the old situation, but updating addon's, and or adding addon's became a pain in the b..., having to think where did I install the current version, or where do I have space to add more.

Now, adding or updating add-ons is easy, and selecting add-ons for a specific flight is a breeze.

Add-on linker is definitely a must have for any serious simmer.

[jmig]

I have been using the Add-on Linker for MSFS ever since I started to accumulate more sceneries/airports.

I had a folder on a separate 1TB drive just for the flight simulator add-ons. Another 500GB SSD for additional add-ons, and then had to keep som ad-ons on a 3rd SSD that was originally meant to only have the actual flight Simulators, like FS2020, Xp-Plane 11/12 P3D and FSX on it.I realised a few months ago that the drive was getting full, and had to remove som files to allow other ones to be added.

This was getting messy, so I ended up buying a Toshibe 6TB Performance Gaming HDD, and moved all the add-ons from different locations to dedicated -simulator specific- folders.

Now it's so much easier to manage add-ons in Add-0n linker (I use a similar program for X-Plane 12) and only load those needed for the flight I am about to enjoy. It keeps load times to a minimum.

Yes, I was able to manage my add-ons through Addon Linker in the old situation, but updating addon's, and or adding addon's became a pain in the b..., having to think where did I install the current version, or where do I have space to add more.

Now, adding or updating add-ons is easy, and selecting add-ons for a specific flight is a breeze.

Add-on linker is definitely a must have for any serious simmer.

I keep everything on a 4TB drive. Makes it clean and easy to find. That is the drive I backed up the other night.

The only thing I can't get Addon Linker to do is turn on and off the MS airplanes. I wish I didn't have to scroll through a dozen T-6s or then L-39s. Most of the default stuff I don’t ever fly. I would like to turn them off where I don’t see them during aircraft selection. I have read how to do it, but it hasn’t worked for me.

[SpaceHippy1975]

Apologies for hi-jacking this thread, feel free to boot me out on my ear!If I was to install the Addons Linker, would it be an issue to link the software to an already populated MSFS install?I've been running the same MSFS install for near enough two years with 880Gb in total installed (442Gb Community) & am loathe to start afresh! Especially as it's been running great for me (I'm probably tempting fate saying that!!)Cheers,Keith

[IanHenry]

Apologies for hi-jacking this thread, feel free to boot me out on my ear!If I was to install the Addons Linker, would it be an issue to link the software to an already populated MSFS install?I've been running the same MSFS install for near enough two years with 880Gb in total installed (442Gb Community) & am loathe to start afresh! Especially as it's been running great for me (I'm probably tempting fate saying that!!)Cheers,Keith

Yes, you can, I put aircraft addons in the MSFS community folder but I keep scenery in dedicated folders on a separate drive & link with Addon Linker, that way I can use it to select the region I intend to fly in ie UK, USA, Australia etc.

If you just cut and paste the contents of your Community folder into folders linked via Addon Linker, you would find huge benefits in sim load times.

[jmig]

Apologies for hi-jacking this thread, feel free to boot me out on my ear!If I was to install the Addons Linker, would it be an issue to link the software to an already populated MSFS install?I've been running the same MSFS install for near enough two years with 880Gb in total installed (442Gb Community) & am loathe to start afresh! Especially as it's been running great for me (I'm probably tempting fate saying that!!)Cheers,Keith

Yes! As Ian stated it is easy to move contents from the Community folder to Addon Linker folders. First you create a series of folders somewhere. It doesn't have to be the same drive as MSFS. I use a separate drive. I have folders like this:
Airplanes
Airplanes Jets
Airplanes Vintage
Scenery Local
Scenery NEast
Scenery SEast
Scenery EU
....
Utilities
Misc.

Once the folders are made, you link them through Addon Linker. Then you can select all the airplanes in the community folder and link them via Addons Linker. Then you select, say your Local scenery and link them. The linking moves the content from the Community Folder to you created folders. later on you can just drag and drop new content into the correct folder and it will automatically link to MSFS.

Once all the various sceneries, aircraft, utilities, etc. are linked, it is a matter of starting Addons Linker click On or Off the items you want or don't want and starting MSFS via Addons Linker. Only the items you selected will show up and be loaded in MSFS.

[SpaceHippy1975]

Thanks for letting me know, I'll give it a whirl!Cheers,Keith.

[Jaxxxxx]

I've only been playing MSFS2020 for 2 months and I already have 800gb of addons. I love personally use Addon Collector but both Addon Linker and Addon Collector are fantastic programs that will organize your mods and quickly allow you to enable and disable individual addons as well as vanilla content.