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How to clean up your Addons

By Kreddel

You want to speed up the loading of your addons when you launch the game?
You have tons of old addons interfering with one another and causing errors?

You should clean up your game!
This guide will give you quick instructions on how to do it.

Award

Created by

Kreddel
Offline

Category: Modding or Configuration, Workshop

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

8 Nov, 2020 @ 11:24am

1 Mar, 2023 @ 12:08pm

1,610	Unique Visitors
67	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

Introduction

Hardcore Cleanup

Softcore Cleanup

Comments

Introduction

This guide shows two methods of cleaning up your addons. Before you start, select the right method for you.

This guide only covers addons from the workshop. If you manually installed addons by putting them into your addons folder, you should know how to remove those.

Why should I do this?

Cleaning up your addons will make your game load up faster when you launch it. Do you recognize the bar at the bottom saying "Fetching Subscriptions"? It's just that.
The workshop is full of lazily ripped addons. This means, if you have a ripped addon installed, which you want to keep and also the original of it, there is a chance the original will overwrite the materials used for the ripped one. You most likely don't want that.

Hardcore Cleanup

When to use this method
This method is used when you have a larger number of addons installed or when you didn't subscribe to all of them manually but through the "Subscribe to all" button in collections.

What does this method do with my addons?
This will uninstall your whole workshop, so you can just reinstall the addons you want.

Before you start!
Make sure you know which addons you want to keep.
Gather them in a collection or write them all down if you're a little weird.

Instructions:

1. Open up Garry's Mod.

2. Click "Addons" in the main menu.

3. Click the little wrench icon at the bottom right.

4. In the menu that opened up, click "Uninstall All".

5. Reinstall your wanted addons.

Subscribe to the collections you want or manually subscribe to addons in the workshop :)

6. Delete all GMAs from your addons folder.

Open the following path: "Steam/steamapps/common/GarrysMod/garrysmod/addons".
Select all the .gma files in there and delete them.

7. Restart Garry's Mod.

The game will reload all necessary GMAs. Let the bar at the bottom do its work till it's done. ^^

You're done, have fun playing!

Softcore Cleanup

When to use this method
This method is used when you only have addons you know because you manually subscribed to them or similar.

What does this method do with my addons?
This will only remove the few addons you don't want.

Instructions:

1. Open up Garry's Mod.

2. Click "Addons" in the main menu.

3. In your list of addons, hover over those you want removed. Click "uninstall".

Click through the pages of your list of addons by using the arrows at the bottom and make use of the filters at the left if you need.

4. Delete all GMAs from your addons folder.

Open the following path: "Steam/steamapps/common/GarrysMod/garrysmod/addons".
Select all the .gma files in there and delete them.

5. Restart Garry's Mod.

The game will reload all necessary GMAs. Let the bar at the bottom do its work till it's done. ^^

You're done, have fun playing!

9 Comments

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DerDummbabbler 17 Dec, 2020 @ 2:47am

"or write them all down if you're a little weird."
Ich sitze hier, ready mit Stift und Papier, um mir die Addons aufzuschreiben, die ich direkt wieder laden möchte. Thanks Krebb

Arctic, consumer of repair putty 27 Nov, 2020 @ 5:35am

Thanks m8

Colonel $ly Banjo 23 Nov, 2020 @ 8:15pm

THis literally helped and made my Computer Run fast as F**k boi faster and better frames as well.
No problems on my side! ^^

Lady 23 Nov, 2020 @ 7:17pm

Actually, you're kindo right, I got stuck on "Fetching subscribed addons..."
then again, I have alot of addons..

Kreddel [author] 23 Nov, 2020 @ 7:08pm

@Winter Tabby
Thank you very much for letting me know. I honestly didn't know the command before. However, after a quick research, there seem to be issues with the command not working properly. So, I'm gonna leave the guide as it is for now. Thanks still

Lady 23 Nov, 2020 @ 3:28pm

@Kreddel doing "menu_cleanupgmas" in the console and that apparently removes unused .gmas still hiding in your addons folder, and I think ones that have been removed off the workshop. That might help too.

Kreddel [author] 13 Nov, 2020 @ 8:09am

@inclutech
At first you need to reproduce the error. If the error pops up at the beginning, the console will tell you which addon causes it. If the error comes up as you load in something, then it's probably that, but the console should tell you still.
When you know the addon: Do you have another variant of it installed? Try to delete those.
Also you should try to think about the rest of your addons. I had a guy asking why my weapon buff didn't work for him. Turned out he had an addon installed which deactivates the weapon. (just an example.)
Btw, the console tells you the line that causes the error and gives you some info on it. Maybe you can try to interpret that. Maybe consider to extract your addons with gmad and look into them. Remember to delete the folders afterwards though.

I think that's as far as I will go in a comment. If you need help, you can add me.

@BryceSTP Thanks for helping mate. Appreciated.

Brob 13 Nov, 2020 @ 5:49am

@incultech In console you can see the Addons conflicting, breaking, or not even working.

but it might not bring up the mod name, however when I see mods break it brings up what didn't work and failed to activate

inclutech 13 Nov, 2020 @ 5:19am

is there a way to see which addons are causing trouble, so i can only delete those? thanks

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