EffectFinder 🔍

A dockable After Effects panel that lists every effect in your project — then lets you reveal, toggle, delete or replace them in bulk. Finds effects whose plugin isn't installed, too.

What it does

Press Scan and you get one row per effect instance, with its layer and comp. From there:

• Search by effect name or match name. Space-separated words must all match, so gaussian 2 works.
• Scope the scan to the whole project, the comps selected in the Project panel, or just the active comp.
• Two views: Instances (one row per effect) or By effect (one row per effect type, with instance and comp counts).
• Missing only: effects whose plugin isn't installed are marked with ⚠ — tick the box to see just those.
• Match layer/comp names: widen the search to layer and comp names as well.

Select one or more rows, then:

Button	What it does
Reveal	Opens the comp and selects the layer(s) and effect(s). Double-clicking a row does the same.
On / Off / Toggle	Enables, disables or flips the selected effects.
Delete	Removes the selected effects, after a confirmation.
Replace...	Swaps each selected effect for another installed effect, keeping its place in the stack.

Each action is a single undo step.

Installation

As a dockable panel (recommended)

• Place EffectFinder.jsx in your ScriptUI Panels folder, restart After Effects, and open it from Window → EffectFinder.jsx:

  Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects [version]\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\
  macOS:   /Applications/Adobe After Effects [version]/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels/
  

As a regular script

• Run it from File → Scripts → Run Script File... and it opens as a floating palette.

Usage

1. Open the panel and press Scan.
2. Type in the search box to narrow the list.
3. Select rows — Ctrl/Shift-click for several. In By effect view, one row stands for every instance of that effect.
4. Press a button.

Replacing effects

Replace... opens a picker over every installed effect, filterable by name, match name or category.

• The new effect lands at the same position in the effect stack and keeps the old one's on/off state.
• Copy matching parameters carries over values, keyframes and expressions for parameters that exist in both effects. It is meant for effects of the same family (say, one blur for another); unrelated effects share few parameters, so little or nothing copies.
• Keyframe values and times are copied, but not their easing or interpolation.

Notes

• The list is a snapshot. If you change the project after scanning, press Scan again — rows that no longer match are skipped and reported as stale.
• Reveal shows one comp at a time: the comp of the first selected row. The status line tells you how many selected rows live in other comps.
• Missing-effect detection relies on After Effects' installed-effects list. If that can't be read, nothing is flagged.

Requirements

• Adobe After Effects with ScriptUI panel support (CS6 or later)

Development

The scan, filter, group, delete and replace logic runs headless against mock After Effects objects — no After Effects needed:

node test/run.cjs

License

MIT