How to Turn On VS Code Settings Sync and Choose What Syncs

Settings Sync keeps your VS Code settings, keyboard shortcuts, extensions, snippets, tasks, UI layout, and profiles consistent across every machine. Turn it on once, sign in, and VS Code handles synchronization in the background.

When you set up VS Code on a new machine, sign in and your entire setup appears. No manual copying of settings files or reinstalling extensions one by one. If you have not yet set up profiles, see /vscode/how-to-create-and-switch-between-profiles-in-vs-code to organize your settings first.

Turn on Settings Sync

What happens on a second machine

When you turn on Settings Sync on another machine with the same account, VS Code detects the existing cloud data and shows a Merge or Replace dialog:

If both machines changed the same setting, VS Code shows a conflict dialog. Pick Accept Local, Accept Remote, or Show Conflicts to review the difference in a diff editor.

Configure what syncs after setup

You can change which categories sync at any time:

• Open the Command Palette and run Settings Sync: Configure.
• Or click the Manage gear, select Settings Sync is On, then Settings Sync: Configure.

Check or uncheck categories and select OK. Changes take effect immediately.

Exclude specific settings or extensions

You can prevent individual settings or extensions from syncing without turning off the entire category.

To exclude a setting, open the Settings editor and find the setting. Select the gear icon and choose Sync This Setting to toggle it off. Alternatively, use the settingsSync.ignoredSettings setting to list settings to exclude.

To exclude an extension, open the Extensions view, find the extension, select the gear icon, and choose Sync This Extension to toggle it off. You can also use the settingsSync.ignoredExtensions setting.

Keyboard shortcuts across platforms

By default, keyboard shortcuts sync per platform. If your shortcuts work the same on Windows, macOS, and Linux, you can disable the settingsSync.keybindingsPerPlatform setting to share them across all platforms.

Machine-specific settings are never synced

Settings with a machine or machine-overridable scope are excluded from sync automatically. These include paths to local executables and other values that would not make sense on a different machine.

Sync profiles across machines

When Profiles is checked in Settings Sync, all your profiles appear on every synced machine. This includes profile names, icons, extensions, settings, and folder associations.

To verify, open the Settings Sync: Configure dropdown and confirm Profiles is checked.

Syncing Stable and Insiders

By default, VS Code Stable and VS Code Insiders use separate sync services. To link them, open VS Code Insiders, turn on Settings Sync, and during setup select the Stable sync service.

Both builds now share the same synced data.

Note that syncing from a newer Insiders build to an older Stable build can cause data incompatibility. If this happens, Settings Sync disables itself on Stable. Update Stable to the latest version and turn sync back on.

View and restore synced data

VS Code keeps local and remote backups of your synced data. Run the Settings Sync: Show Synced Data command to view them.

Local backups are stored on your machine in a folder organized by preference type with timestamped versions. Open it with Settings Sync: Open Local Backups Folder. Local backups are deleted after 30 days.

Remote backups are stored in the cloud. The latest 20 versions of each resource are kept.

If something goes wrong, restore individual settings, keybindings, snippets, or extensions from these views.

Turn off Settings Sync

To stop syncing, click the Manage gear, select Settings Sync is On, and choose Settings Sync: Turn Off.

You will be asked whether to clear all cloud data. Check the checkbox to permanently delete your synced data. If you leave it unchecked, your data stays in the cloud for when you turn sync back on.

If you want to move a profile to a different machine without using Sync, you can /vscode/how-to-export-import-and-share-a-vs-code-profile instead.