How to maintain my addons?
 

I'm a newbie in addons but I love em, so much freedom to customize and all that. But I would like to know if there's anything to do to maintain them. Like, deleting pointless cache data or something to take some of the load off. Thanks for any input!

There isn't really much you need to do to "maintain" them as a user. Most of the work ends up needing to happen on the author side, but you can support authors with that.

Some things that come to mind:

• Keep your addons up to date. Especially when a new DLC or chapter update was just released. Most issues that get reported are due to outdated addon installations.
• Check the addon comments of the ones that didn't receive any updates after a new game update and disable or uninstall any that are known to be incompatible with the new game version.
• Don't use addons like BugEater that sweep problems under the rug. They often make it hard to determine the actual issue.
  • Instead try to collect steps how to reproduce errors you get and report them to the authors.
  • Bonus point if you add a LibDebugLogger logfile as described here.
• Write a positive comment when you like an addon or a new feature that was just added. Usually we only get to hear from users when something broke or there is a complaint or they want something added, which gets really demotivating and tiresome after a while when it's the only kind of feedback you get.
• Donate to your favorite authors (in case they have added a donation pages). They spend countless hours on making them and keeping them working with the sometimes big changes that ZOS makes to the game for no personal gain.
• Check the forums regularly if they need help with anything. Sometimes authors ask for translation help in the translation forum or for testers to try a new feature.

I'm sure there are other things too that would help that I didn't think of right now.

I already do that, positive feedback is always good to hear. Especially knowing how many authors are getting through very hard times and working on these add-ons is their way of processing all that.

As for the rest, I do my best to keep track of dates and updates.

Thanks a lot for the help and the info, mate.

Here is a link to SavevVariables [SV, in short] (stores your settings of addons locally to your PC) describing how to find them, help to read them and how to backup them.
Maybe another thing that needs to be known about addons as SV should be backuped regularly (I recommand at least once a week) so you can go back to them easily.
https://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9235


They only change files if you reload the UI, logout or quit the game so if the client crashes they got an old unsaved state and you might loose data.
That's why having backups saves a lot of time, especially if you use addons that store data accross your toons, liek carfting and research related, and/or guild sales data etc.