Project and IDE Preferences
There are two types of settings that define your preferred environment:
Project settings, that apply to a specific project. In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), they are marked with
.IDE settings, that are common for all projects and refer to the project-independent aspects.
Project settings
Project settings are stored with each specific project as a set of .xml files under the .idea folder. If you specify the template project settings, these settings will be automatically used for each newly created project.
The settings that pertain to a project, are marked with the icon in the Settings/Preferences dialog.
IDE settings
IDE settings are stored in the dedicated directories under CLion home directory. The CLion directory name is composed of the product name and version.
For example:
- Windows
-
<User home>\.\config that contains user-specific settings.
<User home>\.\system that stores CLion data caches.
<User home> in WindowsXP is C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\; in Windows Vista it is C:\Users\<Username>\
- Linux
-
/./config that contains user-specific settings.
~/./system that stores CLion data caches.
- macOS
-
~/Library/Application Support/ contains the catalog with plugins.
~/Library/Preferences/ contains the rest of the configuration settings.
~/Library/Caches/ contains data caches, logs, local history, and so on. These files can be quite significant in size.
~/Library/Logs/ contains logs.
Locations of directories
The config directory has several subfolders that contain .xml files with your personal settings. You can easily share your preferred keymaps, color schemes, and so on by copying these files into the corresponding folders on another CLion installation. Prior to copying, make sure that CLion is not running, because it can erase the newly transferred files before shutting down.
The following is the list of some of the subfolders under the config folder, and the settings contained therein.
Folder name | User settings |
|---|---|
| codestyles | Contains code style schemes. |
| colors | Contains editor colors and fonts customization schemes. |
| filetypes | Contains user-defined file types. |
| inspection | Contains code inspection profiles. |
| keymaps | Contains CLion keyboard shortcuts customizations. |
| options | Contains various options, for example, feature usage statistics and macros. |
| templates | Contains user-defined live templates. |
| tools | Contains configuration files for the user-defined external tools. |
| shelf | Contains shelved changes. |
Locations of the config, system, and plugins directories can be modified in idea.properties file. For more information, see Configuring platform properties.