How to · Serato DJ

Delete crates in Serato DJ.

To delete a crate in Serato DJ, click it once in the crate panel, then hold Control on Windows or Command on macOS and press Delete. The crate goes, the tracks stay in your All crate, and the audio files on your drive are untouched. Two things the shortcut does not come with: a restore command inside the app, and, on current versions, the Protect Library checkbox that used to block the delete.

See DJ library features

Download trial

$49$79USD one-time purchase. First 250 licenses at this price. 14-day free trial.

Delete crates in Serato DJ, step by step.

The answer to how to delete crates in Serato, Mac or Windows alike, is one keyboard shortcut: only the modifier key changes. The steps below cover the version check that trips people up, the delete itself, what it does and does not remove, and what to do instead when the crate is only badly named.

01

Check whether Protect Library is switched on

Serato documents Protect Library as existing only in Serato DJ Pro 3.3.5 and below. On an old Serato DJ Pro 3.3.5 download, open Setup, choose the Library + Display tab, and uncheck it: while it is on, Serato locks the library against track and crate deletion and locks crate names too, so how to rename crates in Serato DJ starts at the same checkbox. Current versions do not have it.

02

Select the crate in the crate panel

Click once on the crate you want gone, in the crate panel on the left of the library. Click, do not double-click: a double-click puts the crate name into rename mode instead. In Serato DJ 4.0 the bottom left corner shows the selected crate's track count, total playback time, total size, and how many of its tracks are not analyzed, a quick way to confirm you picked the right one.

03

Hold Control or Command and press Delete

With the crate highlighted, hold Control on Windows or Command on macOS and press Delete. Serato removes the crate from the panel straight away. The modifier key is the safeguard here: the shortcut is documented as the modifier plus Delete, so the Delete key on its own is not what removes a crate. Behind the scenes, the crate file leaves the Subcrates folder inside your _Serato_ folder.

04

Confirm what actually got deleted

A crate holds references to tracks, not copies of them, so deleting one never deletes music. Every track it held is still in the All crate, still in any other crate that holds it, and still sitting on your drive. That is the whole point of pruning: you are keeping your DJ crates free of dead weight without touching a single file.

05

Rename or rebuild instead, when only the name is wrong

If the crate is fine and the name is not, skip the delete. Double-click the crate name, type a new one, and press Enter: that is how to rename a crate in Serato, and the same move covers how to name a crate in Serato DJ right after you create one. In the other direction, how to make crates in Serato DJ is the Add Crate button.

06

Back up the _Serato_ folder before a big prune

Your crates are files in the Subcrates folder inside _Serato_, which lives in your Music folder on both macOS and Windows. Serato writes automatic library backups and offers another one when you quit. Copy that folder somewhere safe before you delete a batch of crates, because restoring one is a manual file copy: there is no restore option inside the app.

The catch

The delete is written to disk immediately, and Serato documents no restore option inside the app to reverse it. After a Serato 4.0 download there is not even a Protect Library checkbox left to stop a mistyped shortcut, so a current backup of the _Serato_ folder is the only safety net you have.

Mood

Euphoric

Melancholic

Mysterious

Energy

Aggressive

Peaceful

Rave

Function

Afterhours

Club

Home

Where Vibes fits

Crates are easier to delete when they are easy to rebuild.

Vibes does not delete, rename, or edit crates inside Serato, and it has no control over your Serato library once you are in the app. What it does is hold the organizing outside Serato: import your library, tag by energy, mood, and role, then export those tags back as crates. When the structure lives in your tags, a crate you pruned by mistake is one export away from existing again.

See how it works

Import your existing Serato library so every track, tag, and rating sits in one place before you start pruning

Tag by energy, mood, and role with Vibe Sort, or let Auto-Tagging suggest vibes from how each track sounds

Export vibes, Sets, and Combinations back to Serato as crates, with optional Camelot key or BPM subfolders

Exports land alongside the crates you built by hand; Vibes never removes or rewrites them

Organize in Vibes, export to Serato DJ.

Your playlists, tags, ratings, and cue points travel back to the gear you play on, so nothing you do in Vibes is locked away.

Frequently asked questions

The honest answers, including the trade-offs.

Close Serato first, before it writes another backup over the good one. Your crates are files in the Subcrates folder inside _Serato_ in your Music folder, and Serato keeps automatic library backups plus the _Serato_Backup copy it makes when you accept the prompt on exit. Find the crate file in the newest backup and copy it back into Subcrates, then reopen Serato. Serato documents no restore option inside the app, so this is a manual file copy.

There is nothing to undo with. The crate panel has no reverse command, and the delete is written to disk the moment you press the shortcut rather than held until you quit. The nearest thing is a backup: the automatic library backups Serato writes, or the copy it offers when you close the app. So quit immediately after a wrong delete and restore that one crate file, before a newer backup replaces the one that still has it.

Highlight the crate, then hold Control on Windows or Command on macOS and press Delete. That same shortcut is the answer to how to delete crates in Serato DJ Pro, to the same job in Serato Studio, and to how to delete playlist on Serato DJ, because Serato has no set-building playlists: a crate is the playlist. Streaming tracks parked in a crate come back out with the same Command plus Delete.

Usually they are not deleted, only unloaded. Serato creates its own _Serato_ folder on the root of every external drive you have added music from, and the crates stored on that drive do not appear while the drive is unplugged. Connect it and look again. If crates are missing on your internal drive too, close Serato, check your Music folder for a renamed or duplicated _Serato_ folder, and restore the Subcrates folder from the newest backup.

Open the crate, click the track, then hold Control or Command and press Delete: the same shortcut as deleting a crate, applied inside one. The track leaves that crate only and stays in All and in every other crate that references it. Press it while you are in the All crate and the track leaves the library instead. The related shortcuts are laid out in manage crates and subcrates in Serato.

Exactly the same way. Serato documents crates for Serato DJ Pro and Serato DJ Lite 4.0 in one article, so the modifier plus Delete removes a crate in Lite too, and a double-click still renames it. Lite has had smart crates since 4.0. If you are still filling the library, how to add music to Serato DJ Lite is the Files button: drag a folder onto the purple All icon, and dropping a folder into the crate panel creates a crate.

Click Check For Updates in the bottom left corner of the Setup screen to see whether you are current. Version matters here only because Protect Library was dropped after 3.3.5. Both editions come from the same Serato DJ download page: the Serato DJ Pro download for crate search and smart crates, the Serato DJ Lite download for the free edition. Searches for a Serato DJ Pro 4.0 beta download or a Serato 4.0 beta download now land on the shipped release.

Serato says three things have to move. The _Serato_ folder from your Music folder, which holds the database and your crates. The Serato Library folder, from Application Support on macOS or AppData\Local on Windows, which holds crate order and history. And your music files themselves. Copy all three to an external drive with Serato closed, then put them in the matching places on the new machine, and check external drives for their own _Serato_ folders.

Delete the crates you never open first, then deal with the tracks underneath them. A crate list balloons fastest after bulk imports from pools and crate services such as Crate Hackers, so prune the list, then hunt duplicates and relink anything showing as missing. That deeper pass is its own routine: see clean up your Serato library and find duplicate tracks in Serato.

Keep a short list of top-level crates that matches how you pull music on the night, nest subcrates under them, and let smart crates cover anything a tag already answers, such as BPM, key, or genre. Make every move inside Serato rather than in Finder or Explorer, because Serato references files by their path on disk. The full walkthrough is on organize your crates in Serato.

From a Vibes customer

The import worked perfectly. Have created several sets now and my life is so much easier

Danny

One-time purchase

Get Vibes with a single payment. No subscription.

First 250 licenses at this price, then $79.

Free Trial

14 days • Full access

Full access to all features

No credit card required

Works offline

Download Free Trial

No strings attached

FREE UPDATES FOREVER

$49USD

one-time payment

Includes Vibes Companion Pro

Use on 2 devices (macOS and Windows)

All updates included, free forever

14-day free trial to evaluate

Secure checkout with Stripe

Already have Companion Pro? Upgrade instead

And there's more

Included with every license

Companion Pro comes with Vibes.

Save tracks from Beatport, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, YouTube and more straight into your library. A $19 tool, free with Vibes.

Explore Companion

Vibes Companion saving a track from a music platform into the Vibes library

Methodology

How we keep this honest.

Reviewed by Ben Modigell, founder of Vibes and a working DJ in Cologne.

Verified against the app

Every step is checked against the current version of Serato DJ.

We own our bias

We make Vibes. We show the native way first and honestly, then where Vibes genuinely helps, and we say when it does not.

Live pricing

The Vibes price shown comes straight from our checkout, never a hardcoded marketing number.

Kept current

Last reviewed June 2026.

Keep exploring

Compare Vibes

DJ apps head to head

Works with your software

Vibes for DJs

Vibes features

How-to guides

Best DJ software

Move between apps

DJ tools

Learn to DJ

DJ directory