If you find you are regularly reusing models across multiple assemblies, (think hardware or “standard” components) you may have wondered if there was a way to make it easier to just drag and drop these parts into your assembly. The good news; you can do this by creating your very own SOLIDWORKS part library.
First decide on (or create) a folder that will act as the location of your new library of parts.
(Note: You could create this folder on a shared network drive to allow access to all SOLIDWORKS users in your company. You could also set permissions to that folder to “read only” to allow the use of the models while preventing unintentional overwriting.)
Next add the file location from inside SOLIDWORKS by clicking on the Design Library tab and choosing to “Add File Location”.
Navigate to the new library folder and click “OK”.
Now when you want to use any of the files in the specified location you will be able to drag and drop the parts, just like any of your other Design Library components.
You can also set the design library folder locations by going to Tools>Options>System Options>File Locations.
