Installed Some Mods Manually Before, Want To Switch To A Manager. Should I clean house? | Hollow Knight Modding | Page 1

oblique vale Jan 31, 2026, 7:06 AM

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Like title says, in my first playthrough toward the end, I installed a few QoL mods and such manually by just dropping them in the bepinex plugin folder.

Thinking about switching to thunderstore since way more mods have come out since and its what everyone is using.

Should I clean my install first? How would I do that thoroughly. Can my existing mods function in conjunction or is it better to start fresh and just do everything through thunderstore? Thanks.

slate parrot Jan 31, 2026, 7:08 AM

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I don’t suggest using the official thunderstore mod manager

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But a generic thunderstore mod installer like r2modman or gale would work better

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And there is of course https://discord.com/channels/879125729936298015/1459654656316805336

oblique vale Jan 31, 2026, 7:09 AM

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Well regardless, you think its necessary to clean the root.

slate parrot Jan 31, 2026, 7:09 AM

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Well

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Hmm

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Cogfly recognizes installed mods based on their manifests

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So if you installed the full zip

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With the manifest.json and all

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It should work fine

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But all of these mod managers don’t use your base game folder

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So it doesn’t matter

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They create additional “profiles” and redirect doorstop to them

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So that the game loads with the mods from the profile instead of the mods from your base game directory

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Cogfly does have an “allow base game modding” option that lets you install mods directly to your game folder and launch them

oblique vale Jan 31, 2026, 7:11 AM

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It's probably better to have it all in one place, I imagine.

slate parrot Jan 31, 2026, 7:11 AM

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Not really?

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The point of the profiles is simple, a lot of mods aren’t compatible

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Okay that’s not true

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A lot of mods aren’t compatible

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But not all of them are compatible gameplay wise

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Like, say, pantheon of pharloom

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So with profiles you can have it all split up

oblique vale Jan 31, 2026, 7:13 AM

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I'm just asking if I should clean my existing install and how.

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I don't care if I have to redownload like four mods, it's not a problem.

slate parrot Jan 31, 2026, 7:14 AM

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Yeah you generally should, and all you have to do is delete the contents of your “Plugins” folder.

If you want to fully clean, delete the entire game folder, go to Steam, properties, installed files, verify integrity of game files

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This will reinstall the entire game

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But you’ll keep your saves and settings and stuff

oblique vale Jan 31, 2026, 7:14 AM

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So keep the bepinex folder, delete everything within "plugins"?

#Installed Some Mods Manually Before, Want To Switch To A Manager. Should I clean house?