Share your IDE settings
PyCharm lets you share your IDE settings between different instances of the product, or among your team members. This helps you recreate a comfy working environment if you are working from different computers and spare the annoyance of things looking or behaving differently from what you are used to, or enforce the same standards throughout your team.
You can share your IDE settings by using one of the following:
IDE Settings Sync: it utilizes the JetBrains server, so no additional configuration is required. Note that synced settings are linked to your JetBrains Account, so they will not be available to other team members, and are only useful to share settings between different IDE instances used by you.
The settings you can sync include: IDE themes, keymaps, color schemes, system settings, UI settings, menus and toolbars settings, project view settings, editor settings, code completion settings, parameter name hints, live templates, code styles, and the list of enabled and disabled plugins.
settings repository: it allows you to sync any configurable components (except for the list of enabled and disabled plugins), but requires setting up a Git repository with the settings you want to share.
This option is useful if you want to implement the same settings among your team-members.
exporting the settings you want to share as a ZIP archive and then importing them to a different IDE installation. You can export your code style settings, Git settings, including registered GitHub accounts, the Debugger settings, Registry keys, look and feel, and more.
Share settings through Settings Sync
Sync settings between IDE instances
On the computer with the IDE instance containing the settings you want to share, sign in to either of the following:
Your IDE: from the main menu choose Help | Register, choose to activate your license with the JetBrains Account and enter your credentials.
Toolbox App: click the gear icon
in the top right corner of the application, select Settings and click Log in. Note that by signing in to Toolbox App, you automatically sign in to all JetBrains products that you run.
In the bottom-right corner of the PyCharm window, click the gear icon
and select Enable Sync. Alternatively, select File | Manage IDE Settings | Sync Settings to JetBrains Account from the main menu. In the dialog that opens, click the Enable Settings Sync button. Your local settings will be exported to the JetBrains repository linked to your account.If you want to automatically sync the list of all enabled and disabled plugins, select the Sync plugins silently option. For instructions on how to sync plugins manually if it is disabled, refer to Sync plugins.
On a different computer where you want these settings to be applied, click the gear button, and select Enable Sync. Alternatively, select File | Manage IDE Settings | Sync Settings to JetBrains Account from the main menu. In the dialog that opens, click Get Settings from Account to import the settings from the repository.
If you want to override the repository with your local settings, click Keep and Sync Local Settings.
Your local settings will be automatically synchronized with the settings stored in the repository each time you run a different IDE instance (or activate it after more than one hour of inactivity), or when any of these settings has been modified and this change has been applied.
Sync plugins
When you install or uninstall plugins, or change their state (enabled/disabled), you can apply these changes to all your IDE installations.
If you want to automatically sync plugins across IDE instances, select the Sync plugins silently option when you enable settings synchronization.
Sync plugins manually
In the bottom-right corner of the PyCharm window, click the gear icon
and select Sync Plugins.A dialog opens showing a list of all plugins that were modified since the last sync. Click the arrow button next to each plugin and choose either to modify the plugin's state, apply the repository state to all installations, skip this change locally, or skip it across all IDE instances.
After you've selected which action to take for each plugin, click Apply Changes.
Share settings through a settings repository
Configure a settings repository
Create a Git repository on any hosting service, such as GitHub.
On the computer where the PyCharm instance whose settings you want to share is installed, select File | Manage IDE Settings | Settings Repository from the main menu. Specify the URL of the repository you've created and click Overwrite Remote.
On each computer where you want your settings to be applied, select File | Manage IDE Settings | Settings Repository from the main menu. Specify the URL of the repository you've created, and click Overwrite Local.
You can click Merge if you want the repository to keep a combination of the remote settings and your local settings. If any conflicts are detected, a dialog will be displayed where you can resolve these conflicts.
If you want to overwrite the remote settings with your local settings, click Overwrite Remote.
Your local settings will be automatically synchronized with the settings stored in the repository each time you perform an Update Project or a Push operation, or when you close your project or exit PyCharm.
On the first sync, you will be prompted to specify a username and password. It is recommended to use an access token for GitHub authentication. If, for some reason, you want to use a username and password instead of an access token, or your Git hosting provider doesn't support it, it is recommended to configure the Git credentials helper.
If you want to disable automatic settings synchronization, in the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to and disable the Auto Sync option. You will be able to update your settings manually by choosing VCS | Sync Settings from the main menu.
Share more settings through additional read-only repositories
Apart from the Settings Repository, you can configure any number of additional repositories containing any types of settings you want to share, including live templates, file templates, schemes, deployment options, and so on.
These repositories are referred to as read-only sources, as they cannot be overwritten or merged, just used as a source of settings as is.
Synchronization with the settings from read-only sources is performed in the same way as for the Settings Repository.
Configure read-only repositories
In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to .
Click
and add the URL of the GitHub repository that contains the settings you want to share.
Copy global settings to the project level
Global (IDE) settings are stored separately from projects. That is why, these settings are not shared through version control together with the project.
Some settings, however, can be copied to the project level. For example, you can create a copy of your code style configuration or inspection profiles. If you do so, the IDE creates the corresponding configuration files in the .idea directory that you can share together with the project through VCS.
PyCharm also provides several ways of sharing settings between different IDE instances. See Share your IDE settings for details.
List of non-shareable configuration files
PyCharm identifies configuration files and adds them to the list of ignored files automatically. However, if you are sharing your project manually, we recommend that you avoid placing these files and folders under version control:
- .idea/workspace.xml
- .idea/usage.statistics.xml
.idea/dictionaries folder
.idea/shelf folder
For the full list of files, refer to How to manage projects under Version Control Systems and JetBrains.gitignore.
Export your settings
Export settings to a ZIP archive
Choose File | Manage IDE Settings | Export Settings from the main menu.
Select the settings you want to export and specify the path to the target archive.
Import settings from a ZIP archive
Choose File | Manage IDE Settings | Import Settings from the main menu.
Select the ZIP archive that contains your settings in the dialog that opens.
Select the settings you want to apply in the Select Components to Import dialog that opens and click OK.