# How can I make an IMPORTED library show up in VS
**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-can-i-make-an-imported-library-show-up-in-vs/8452
**Category:** Usage
**Tags:** os:windows, gen:vs
**Created:** [July 3, 2023, 9:13am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-can-i-make-an-imported-library-show-up-in-vs/8452 "2023-07-03T09:13:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@aidexie](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/aidexie)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2023, 9:13am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-can-i-make-an-imported-library-show-up-in-vs/8452/1 "2023-07-03T09:13:59Z")
I have a CMake project that mostly uses 3 types of library
1. Some libraries are compiled from source
2. Some libraries are header only (INTERFACE)
3. There is one library that is IMPORTED. Which means that I provide a .lib, a .dll, and the headers.
For 1 and 2, I like that they show up in the Solution Explorer of Visual Studio.
For case 3, I haven’t been able to.
I would like to be able to view the headers in ide so it would be easier to use, is there any way to do that?
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### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2023, 10:55am UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-can-i-make-an-imported-library-show-up-in-vs/8452/2 "2023-07-04T10:55:58Z")
`IMPORTED` targets don’t really “exist” at build time, so there’s nothing for CMake to put into VS.
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### Author:  [@jtxa](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/jtxa)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2023, 5:45pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-can-i-make-an-imported-library-show-up-in-vs/8452/3 "2023-07-11T17:45:19Z")
If headers are added to an imported library, it would be consistent to handle them similar to an interface library.