Garry’s Mod (GMod) is a sandbox game that allows players to create and enjoy their own custom game experiences. It’s an incredibly popular game, and players have created an incredible variety of custom content for it.
Unfortunately, hosting a custom GMod server can be difficult, especially if you’re not familiar with the various aspects of setting up a server. To help you out, our gamers will walk you through the steps of installing custom addons on your Garry’s Mod server.
How to Install Custom Add-ons on a Garry's Mod Server: 3 Parts
Installing the Chosen Addons
- Use the workshop to choose which add-ons you want and then install them.
- Once installed, go to your Garry's Mod install location. To do this, right-click Garry's Mod in your Steam Library. Click Properties, Local Files, and then Browse Local Files.
- If you click on Garry's Mod folder and the Addons folder, you'll see a few .gma files with the names of the add-ons you just installed. You need to unpack these files so your server can see them.

Extracting the Installed Addons
- First, you need to find Gmad.exe. It should be in the same place as the GarrysMod folder you just used, in the Bin folder.
- Use the Windows search tool to find it, then drag and drop the .gma files from your addons folder onto the gmad.exe file in the bin folder.
- A command prompt window should open. Let it do its work.
- When you're done, you should see a folder inside your Addons folder named after the .gma file you just unpacked.
Placing the Installed Addons
- Connect to your server through FTP and go to the GarrysMod folder on your server.
- Open up the folders in your local add-ons folder.
- Drag and drop those folders into the GarrysMod folder on your server and let everything run.
- Once you're done, boot up your server to see if everything went well.

Conclusion
Installing custom addons on your Garry’s Mod server is a simple and straightforward process. All you need to do is choose the addons you want to install, extract them, and then place them in the correct folder on your server [1].
As long as you follow the steps outlined in this guide, you should have no trouble getting your server up and running with custom addons!