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I recently upgraded to 4.2.3 LTS and appear to have lost all my extensions. I found a blender site with 300 extensions, and downloaded those I think I wanted. I received them as zip files and stored them in D:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 4.2\4.2\extensions
I enabled one, but I want to enable all of them. It seems that I have to edit the TOML file but when I try to add two extensions, I lose both and end up with an empty extension screen in Blender. ChatCPT gave me some responses like creating separate TOML files or combining them into a single TOML file but nothing worked so far. Suggestions?

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  • $\begingroup$ That is not how you add extensions in Blender! Go to Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions in Blender and (assuming you have allowed Blender to go online) you should see the complete list of addons in the online Blender directory. Just click the Install button against each one that you want and it will be downloaded and installed and will appear on the Addons tab. See CG Dive's YT tutorial here. $\endgroup$
    – John Eason
    Commented Nov 27 at 19:04
  • $\begingroup$ The above was attempted several times and never worked. What finally worked was installing zip files from disk. $\endgroup$
    – GaryM
    Commented Nov 27 at 22:33

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Where did you download from? You don't need to manually install extensions, and you definitely should not modify them in order to install them.

Downloading and installing extensions from Blender

Extensions from Blender's official extensions platform can be downloaded from Blender out of the box in the Preferences > Get Extensions category:

enter image description here

You can add additional 3rd party repositories from which to download extensions without leaving Blender. See Get Extensions - Repositories - Blender 4.3 Manual

Install from Blender's official Extensions Platform Website

You can also go on extensions.blender.org, click the Get Extension button, drag and drop to Blender and confirm the installation.

enter image description here

Install from zip

If you want to install from an already downloaded zip file (you don't need to if it's in the extensions platform, that would be more used for legacy addons), use the ddrop-downmenu in the top right corner to install from disk:

enter image description here

Manual Install

It's the most cumbersome way to install anything but if you really want to do it manually, first you need to go to the extensions folder located in Blender's User Directory:

Linux

$HOME/.config/blender/4.3/

If the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable is set:

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/blender/4.3/

macOS

/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/Blender/4.3/

Windows

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.3\

In the extensions folder, there should be folders for each extensions source you used: blender_org for the official platform, user_default for personal local extensions. If your extensions are from Blender's platform, go in blender_org, otherwise go in user_default.

Once there, decompress your zip file in its own dedicated directory, so that the final extensions's files (the blender_manifest.toml, any py files and subfolders) are self-contained. Example with the cloudrig extension, it looks like this:

▽ blender_user_directory\
    ▷ config\
    ▽ extensions\
        ▽ blender_org\
            ▽ cloudrig\
                ▷ __init__.py
                ▷ blender_manifest.toml
                ▷ LICENSE
                ▷ other extensions files and folders
            ▷ looptools\
            ▷ matalogue\
        ▷ user_default\
    ▷ scripts\
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