Advanced Preferences & Project Store
Astro Editor stores all of its settings as plain JSON files on your machine. You rarely need to touch them, but knowing where they live can help with troubleshooting.
Where settings are stored
Section titled “Where settings are stored”Everything lives in the app’s data directory:
| Platform | Location |
|---|---|
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/is.danny.astroeditor/ |
| Windows | %LOCALAPPDATA%\is.danny.astroeditor\ |
| Linux | ~/.local/share/is.danny.astroeditor/ |
You can open this folder from the Advanced tab in Preferences.
What’s in there
Section titled “What’s in there”Settings sit in a preferences/ subfolder:
| File | What it holds |
|---|---|
preferences/global-settings.json |
Your Preferences, and app-wide choices like which copyedit highlights are on |
preferences/project-registry.json |
The list of projects you’ve opened, with which was last open and the file open in each |
preferences/projects/<project-id>.json |
One file per project, holding what you’ve set in Project Settings (see the Settings Reference) |
Beside it, window-state.json remembers the window’s size and position. Two more folders hold data rather than settings: recovery/ and crash-reports/.
Recovery
Section titled “Recovery”Astro Editor auto-saves as you write. If a save ever fails, for example because the file can’t be written, it also writes a copy of your unsaved work to the recovery/ folder (a structured .json and a readable .md version), and a report to crash-reports/.
That’s the only time either folder is written. Nothing is written when the app crashes, is force quit or loses power: auto-save is what protects your work then. There’s no in-app restore step, and nothing deletes these files. They stay in those folders for you to copy back by hand, or delete, when you’re done with them.
How projects are identified
Section titled “How projects are identified”Projects are identified by their folder. If you move or rename a project’s folder, it shows as Missing in the project list: choose it and pick its new location to keep its settings. See Moved projects.
Files that can’t be read
Section titled “Files that can’t be read”If a settings file can’t be read, Astro Editor never writes over it. It renames it to <name>.broken-<date>.json beside the original, carries on with the defaults, and tells you. Your old settings are still in that file if you want to copy them back.
Project settings from Astro Editor 1.0 can’t be read by later versions. The first time each project opens, its old file is renamed to <project-id>.v2.json and the project starts with no settings, so anything you changed in 1.0 needs setting again in Project Settings. Most projects don’t need any, since folders and fields are read from the project itself.
The Advanced tab
Section titled “The Advanced tab”The Advanced tab in Preferences is for troubleshooting.
Version shows the version of Astro Editor and the Preferences format its settings files use.
Under Maintenance:
- Preferences folder: Open Preferences Folder opens the app’s data directory, described above.
- Reset all preferences: Reset All Preferences deletes your preferences, every project’s settings and the project list, along with the window’s size and position, then restarts Astro Editor. The open file is saved first. Your projects’ files aren’t touched, and recovery files and crash reports are kept. It can’t be undone.