Shake Node to Disconnect — Documentation

Requires Blender 5.1 or later.

1. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.

2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right of the window and choose Install from Disk…

3. Select shake-node-to-disconnect-1.0.0.zip. Blender asks for no permission: the add-on reads and writes nothing on disk and never accesses the network.

4. The extension installs and enables itself. There is no panel, menu or shortcut to look for: open any node editor and it is already active.

To update later, install the newer zip the same way; it replaces the previous version. Disabling or uninstalling the add-on stops it immediately — it stores nothing in your .blend files, so they open exactly the same without it.

There is nothing to run and nothing to switch on. The add-on reacts to a single gesture, made while you move nodes the way you already do.

1. Select the node you want to free — or several nodes.

2. Start moving it as usual: click-drag it, or press G.

3. Without dropping it, shake it back and forth a few times, briskly. With the default settings, four changes of direction within 0.6 seconds are enough.

4. The moment the shake is recognised, the selection is disconnected from the rest of the tree. The nodes keep following the cursor: place them, then confirm the move as usual.

Blender's own move does all the moving, so snapping, auto-offset and dropping a node onto a link keep working exactly as they always have. The add-on only adds the disconnection.

Every node editor open on screen is watched, in every window, whatever tree it shows. The gesture and the preferences are the same everywhere.

The selection is treated as one block. When a shake is recognised, every selected node of the tree is disconnected from the rest of it at once — but never from the other selected nodes.

On by default. Just before the links are cut, the chain is closed behind the selection: whatever fed it is plugged straight into whatever it was feeding. It is the effect of Blender's Delete with Reconnect (Ctrl+X), without deleting anything.

The new links join two non-selected nodes, so the same shake never cuts them. Turn the option off in the preferences if you would rather leave the gap open.

Open Edit > Preferences > Add-ons and expand Shake Node to Disconnect. Every change applies immediately — no restart, no need to reopen the file.

The links are cut the moment the shake is recognised, while the nodes are still moving — not when you drop them. That decides how to take a shake back.

Shook a node by mistake? Drop it, then undo: it is the quickest way back to exactly where you were.