Project and IDE Settings
There are two types of preferences that define your preferred environment:
Project preferences, that apply to a specific project. In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, they are marked with
.IDE preferences, that are common for all projects and refer to the project-independent aspects.
Project preferences
Project preferences 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 preferences
IDE preferences are stored in the dedicated directories under PyCharm home directory. The PyCharm directory name is composed of the product name and version.
For example:
- Windows
<User home>\.PyCharmXX\config that contains user-specific settings.
<User home>\.PyCharmXX\system that stores PyCharm data caches.
<User home> in WindowsXP is C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\; in Windows Vista it is C:\Users\<Username>\
- Linux
/.PyCharmXX/config that contains user-specific settings.
~/.PyCharmXX/system that stores PyCharm data caches.
- macOS
~/Library/Application Support/PyCharmXX contains the catalog with plugins.
~/Library/Preferences/PyCharmXX contains the rest of the configuration settings.
~/Library/Caches/PyCharmXX contains data caches, logs, local history, and so on. These files can be quite significant in size.
~/Library/Logs/PyCharmXX 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 PyCharm installation. Prior to copying, make sure that PyCharm 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 preferences |
|---|---|
| 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 PyCharm 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 Platform properties.