> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.gridshift.studio/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Why a Built-in Library

> Your samples, patterns and presets are your palette. Gridshift keeps them in its own library so you find, try and sort sounds fast, on every Mac and on the iPhone.

Most DAWs browse folders on your disk and leave the palette to you. Gridshift imports your sounds into a library it manages. That is one import step, and it changes how fast you get to the right sound.

## Try a sound in the song

`⌥S` swaps the sound on a track while the song plays, so you judge each candidate in your mix instead of alone in a preview. Patterns and presets work the same way. See [Sample Library](/library/sample-library.md).

## Find it by how it sounds

The library listens to every sample once, on your Mac. Then you search by description ("dusty snare"), list the sounds closest to the one you have, and spot duplicates. Folder names stop mattering. See [Smart Search](/library/smart-search.md).

## Measured once, ready every time

Gridshift measures each sample once, in the background: tempo, key, loop or one-shot, and how it sounds. From then on a sample lands at the right tempo and in key, and search answers at once.

## Clear out the pile

Years of sample packs and presets turn into a pile nobody finds anything in. Imported folders become tags, collections suggest the unsorted sounds that fit them, and duplicates show up on their own. You decide; the app does the legwork. See [Organize Samples](/library/organize-samples.md).

## Sort on the go

The same library is on every Mac and on the iPhone. Audition and file samples on the train, and find them sorted in the studio. See [iPhone: Samples](/sync/iphone-library.md).

## Your assistant knows your palette

An [AI assistant](/get-started/ai-assistants-what-for.md) searches the same library, so what it suggests and places comes from your sounds.

## What it costs

* **Import copies.** Your files go into `~/Music/Gridshift/Samples` and the originals stay where they were. On the same disk the copy takes almost no extra space; from an external drive it is a full copy, and the import sheet shows the size first.
* **One sound is stored once.** Importing the same pack twice adds nothing.
* **The store has a fixed place.** To keep it on another drive, move your `~/Music` folder there and link it; Gridshift picks it up at the next launch.
* **Files on disk are named by their content**, not by their original name; the library keeps the name. **Show Sample in Finder** reveals one. There is no export of a whole collection yet.
* **Nothing watches your folders.** New files in a Splice or download folder come in when you import that folder again; what is already there is skipped.
* **Optimize Storage is optional and needs iCloud.** With it on, when free space falls below 40 GB, the least used samples that are safely in iCloud are replaced on this Mac by a small mono copy. Placing or editing one fetches the original back; offline, the small copy plays until it arrives.
* **Projects keep their own copy.** Saving copies every sample a project uses into the project file, so a project still opens after you delete a sample from the library.
* **Deleted samples wait 30 days** in the library's Trash before they are gone.

**Next:** [Find Samples](/library/find-samples.md) shows the library in use.


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