Preferences
Use preferences to customize the behavior of the Unity Editor.
To access the Preferences window, go to Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Unity > Preferences (macOS) from the main menu in Unity. The following preference categories are available:
Navigating the Preferences window
Use the search box to filter the list of settings categories, and highlight keywords in the details pane on the right.
General
General preferences let you customize the overall behavior for working in Unity.
This allows you to throttle Editor performance, and reduce consumption of CPU resources and power.
For example, if you want to test the Editor’s performance, set this property to No Throttling. If you want to conserve power (for example, to prolong battery life on a laptop computer), set this property to one of the throttled modes.
In throttled modes, the Editor stops idling if you interact with it (for example, by panning in the Scene view).
The 2D preference settings allow you to define the settings of 2D-related features and packages. When you install 2D related packages (such as the Tilemap Editor package) into your Project, their preference settings will appear in this section.
Physics
Use the Physics preferences to configure the 2D physics settings, such as the colors used in the UI (User Interface) Allows a user to interact with your application. Unity currently supports three UI systems. More info
See in Glossary .
The 2D Physics Preferences window.
| Property | Function | |
|---|---|---|
| Colliders An invisible shape that is used to handle physical collisions for an object. A collider doesn’t need to be exactly the same shape as the object’s mesh — a rough approximation is often more efficient and indistinguishable in gameplay. More info See in Glossary |
Set the colors for the following UI elements. | |
| Awake Color (Outline) | Set the color of the Collider 2D Gizmo A graphic overlay associated with a GameObject in a Scene, and displayed in the Scene View. Built-in scene tools such as the move tool are Gizmos, and you can create custom Gizmos using textures or scripting. Some Gizmos are only drawn when the GameObject is selected, while other Gizmos are drawn by the Editor regardless of which GameObjects are selected. More info See in Glossary ’s outline when the Rigidbody A component that allows a GameObject to be affected by simulated gravity and other forces. More info See in Glossary 2D it’s attached to is Awake. |
|
| Awake Color (Filled) | Set the color of the Collider 2D Gizmo’s interior fill when the Rigidbody 2D it’s attached to is Awake. | |
| Asleep Color (Outline) | Set the color of the Collider 2D Gizmo’s outline when the Rigidbody 2D it’s attached to is Asleep. | |
| Asleep Color (Filled) | Set the color of the Collider 2D Gizmo’s interior fill when the Rigidbody 2D it’s attached to is Asleep. | |
| Bounds Color | Set the color of the bounds for all PhysicsShape2D that a Collider 2D creates. | |
| Contacts | Set the colors used for the following UI elements. | |
| Contact Color | Set the color of the Collider 2D Gizmo’s contacts which are displayed as a directional arrow starting at the contact point in the direction of the contact normal. | |
| Contact Arrow Scale | Set the scale of the Collider 2D contacts arrow. Larger values draw the arrow larger. | |
Analysis
The Analysis preferences let you define settings for the Profiler A window that helps you to optimize your game. It shows how much time is spent in the various areas of your game. For example, it can report the percentage of time spent rendering, animating, or in your game logic. More info
See in Glossary .
Analysis scope on the Preferences window
| Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Frame count | Set the maximum number of frames for the Profiler to capture. You can set this number between 300 and 2,000. |
| Show stats for ‘current frame’ | By default, when you select the Current Frame button and enter Current Frame mode, the frame indicator line doesn’t have annotations with the stats for the current frame. This is because the stats annotations might make it difficult to view data in real-time. To display the annotations, enable this setting. |
| Default recording state | Select which recording state the Profiler should open in. Choose from Enabled, Disabled, or Remember. Enabled keeps the Record button enabled between sessions, while Disbled disables it, regardless of whether you turn it on or off during your profiling session. The Remember state remembers whether you have enabled or disabled the Record button during your session and keeps it at its last state next time you open the Profiler window. |
| Default editor target mode | Select what mode the Attach to Player dropdown should target by default. Choose from either Playmode or Editor. |
| Custom connection ID | Enter the connection name that you want to use for the device that’s running your application in the Attach to Player drop down in the Profiler Window or Console Window A Unity Editor window that shows errors, warnings and other messages generated by Unity, or your own scripts. More info See in Glossary . |
Asset Pipeline
Asset Pipeline scope on the Preferences window
| Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Auto Refresh | Enable this setting to import Assets automatically as they change. |
| Import Worker Count % | Enter your Desired Import Worker Count for new projects in percentage of available logical CPU cores. For example, if your system has 16 logical cores and this preference is set to 25%, the Desired Import Worker Count for new projects is set to 4. If you set this value too high, your import worker processes need to compete over other processes and system resources such as reading and writing files. The default value of 25% is suitable for most situations. |
| Directory Monitoring (available only on Windows) | Enable this setting to monitor directories instead of scanning all project files to detect asset changes. |
| Compress Textures on Import | Disable this setting to skip texture compression A method of storing data that reduces the amount of storage space it requires. See Texture Compression, Animation Compression, Audio Compression, Build Compression. See in Glossary during import. Textures are typically imported into uncompressed formats. |
| Verify Saving Assets | Enable this setting to verify which Assets to save individually. A dialog is shown any time Unity saves any assets. |
| Unity Accelerator (Cache Server) | |
| Default Mode | Define the default setting for the Cache Server A standalone app that you can run on your local computer that stores the imported asset data to reduce the time it takes to import assets. More info See in Glossary , whether to enable or disable it by default. You can override this per Project in the Unity Editor settings. For more information, see Unity Accelerator. |
| Default IP address | Set the default IP address for the Cache Server to use. You can override this per Project in the Unity Editor settings. |
| Check Connection | Click this button to attempt to connect to the remote Cache Server. |
Colors
The Colors preferences let you pick colors for various user interface elements in the Unity Editor.
Colors scope on the Preferences window
| Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Animation | Use this setting to customize color preferences for animated properties. |
| Property Animated | The color to indicate a property that’s currently being animated. |
| Property Candidate | The color to indicate the animated property that you modified recently. |
| Property Recorded | The color to indicate that an animated property automatically records changes in the animation clip Animation data that can be used for animated characters or simple animations. It is a simple “unit” piece of motion, such as (one specific instance of) “Idle”, “Walk” or “Run”. More info See in Glossary . |
| General | Use this setting to customize color preferences for General settings. |
| Playmode Tint | The color to tint the editor to for ease of identifying when you’re in Play mode. Unity tints the whole editor with the color you pick here when you enter Play mode. Some operations in the Editor aren’t available when in Play mode, and you can reset some edited values when exiting the Play mode. |
| Scene | Use this setting to customize preferences for a Scene. |
| Background | Set the color for the scene camera A component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info See in Glossary to clear to when the Scene FX skybox A special type of Material used to represent skies. Usually six-sided. More info See in Glossary setting is turned off. |
| Background for Prefabs An asset type that allows you to store a GameObject complete with components and properties. The prefab acts as a template from which you can create new object instances in the scene. More info See in Glossary |
Set the color for the scene camera to clear to when the Scene FX skybox setting is turned off. |
| Contribute GI: Off / Receive GI: Light Probes Light probes store information about how light passes through space in your scene. A collection of light probes arranged within a given space can improve lighting on moving objects and static LOD scenery within that space. More info See in Glossary |
Set the color to display when ContributeGI is disabled in the GameObject The fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info See in Glossary ’s Static Editor Flags. |
| Contribute GI: On / Receive GI: Light Probes | Set the color to display when ContributorGI is enabled in the GameObject’s Static Editor Flags, and the Renderer’s ReceiveGI property is set to Lightmaps A pre-rendered texture that contains the effects of light sources on static objects in the scene. Lightmaps are overlaid on top of scene geometry to create the effect of lighting. More info See in Glossary . |
| Contribute GI: On / Receive GI: Lightmaps | Set the color to display when ContributeGI is enabled in the GameObject’s Static Editor Flags, and the Renderer’s ReceiveGI property is set to Light Probes. |
| Grid | Set the color of the grid in the Scene view. |
| Guide Line | Set the color of the Guide Line in the Scene view. |
| Material Validator Pure Metal | Set the color for the Validate Albedo/Metal Specular debug render mode to indicate the material properties. |
| Material Validator Value Too High | Set the color for the Validate Albedo/Metal Specular debug render mode to indicate when the material value is too high. |
| Material Validator Value Too Low | Set the color for the Validate Albedo/Metal Specular debug render mode to indicate when the material value is too low. |
| Selected Axis | Set the color for the selected handle to show highlighted in, when Move, Rotate, or the Scale tool is engaged. |
| Selected Children Outline | Set the outline color for the children of the selected objects. |
| Selected Material Highlight | Set the outline color that shows when clicking on a mesh The main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info See in Glossary in the MeshRenderer to ping the submesh in the Scene view. |
| Selected Outline | Set the outline color for the selected GameObjects. |
| UI Collider Handle | Set the color to use for the Unity UI’s padding visualization. |
| Volume Gizmo | Set the color to indicate the audio source A component which plays back an Audio Clip in the scene to an audio listener or through an audio mixer. More info See in Glossary in Gizmo. |
| Wireframe | Set the color of the wireframe when the wireframe render mode is active. |
| Wireframe Overlay | Set the color of the wireframe when the textured wireframe render mode is active. |
| Wireframe Selected | If you’ve enabled Selection Wire in the Gizmo options, then the selected wireframes appear in the color that you set here. |
| X Axis | The color that you set here is indicated for any built-in transform tool handle affecting x-axis. |
| Y Axis | The color that you set here is indicated for any built-in transform tool handle affecting y-axis. |
| z Axis | The color that you set here is indicated for any built-in transform tool handle affecting z-axis. |
Diagnostics
When you report a problem to Unity, the Unity Support Team might need you to enable diagnostic switches to help identify the cause. Running diagnostics on an application, whether in the Editor or a player, impacts performance and user experience. You should only run diagnostics when the Unity Support Team requires them.
Diagnostics on the Preferences window
If diagnostic switches are active in your application, Unity shows a warning in the console. To reset switches, in the Diagnostics tab, click Reset all.
If an active diagnostic switch prevents the Unity Editor from opening, use the —reset-diagnostic-switches parameter to reset all switches from the command line. For more information on using command line arguments at launch, see Command line arguments.
Display Settings
Use the Display Settings preferences to customize the behavior of the Game view for attached monitors.
Display Settings on the Preferences window
| Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Sort Display Order (Windows Only) | Enable this setting to sort the display numbers of the attached monitors by distance to the main display. Note that this setting works on Windows only. |
| Show notification when entering fullscreen | Enable this to display a notification in fullscreen mode to view the shortcut required (CTRL+SHIFT+F7) to exit the fullscreen mode in Game view. When disabled, the shortcut notification to exit the fullscreen mode doesn’t appear. |
| Show game view Toolbar__ on Fullscreen__ | When enabled, the Game view Control Bar that contains game objects like gizmos and stats is visible on the fullscreen mode. |
| Standalone simulation monitor mapping | Displays the number of standalone monitors mapped to your device. |
External Tools
Use the External Tools preferences to set up external applications for scripting, working with images, and source control.
Revision Control Diff/Merge
Unity currently supports these tools:
- SourceGear DiffMerge
- TkDiff
- P4Merge
- TortoiseMerge
- WinMerge
- PlasticSCM Merge
- Beyond Compare 4
Note: As these are third-party tools that Unity doesn’t include by default, you might want to download and install them separately.
To set up a custom revision tool, follow these steps:
- From the Revision Control Diff/Merge dropdown list, select Custom Tool.
- Enter the path to the custom tool’s installation folder. On Mac, this should point to the Contents / MacOS folder in the tool’s installation folder.
- Enter the arguments for two-way diffs, three-way diffs, and merges.
To specify file layout in the revision tool, use these arguments:
| Property | Function |
|---|---|
| #LTITLE | Left title |
| #RTITLE | Right title |
| #ATITLE | Ancestor title |
| #LEFT | Left file |
| #RIGHT | Right file |
| #ANCESTOR | Ancestor file |
| #OUTPUT | Output file |
| #ABSLEFT | Absolute path to the left file |
| #ABSRIGHT | Absolute path to the right file |
| #ABSANCESTOR | Absolute path to the ancestor file |
| #ABSOUTPUT | Absolute path to the output file |
SourceGear DiffMerge 
P4Merge
GI Cache
The Global Illumination A group of techniques that model both direct and indirect lighting to provide realistic lighting results.
See in Glossary (GI) system uses a cache on each computer to store intermediate files used to pre-compute real-time Global Illumination. All projects on the computer share the cache.
GI Cache scope on the Preferences window
| Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Maximum Cache Size (GB) | Use the slider to set the maximum GI cache folder size. Unity keeps the GI cache folder size below this number whenever possible. Unity periodically deletes unused files to create more space (deleting the oldest files first). This is an automatic process, and doesn’t require you to do anything. Note: If the current Scene is using all the files in the GI cache, increase your cache size. Otherwise, resource-intensive recomputation occurs when baking. This can happen when the Scene is large or the cache size is too small. |
| Custom cache location | Enable this option to allow a custom location for the GI cache folder. By default, the GI cache is stored in the Caches folder. All Projects share the cache folder. Tip: Storing the GI Cache on an SSD drive can speed up baking in cases where the baking process is I/O bound. |
| Cache Folder Location | Click the Browse button to specify a location for the cache. |
| Cache compression | This option enables Unity to compress datafiles in the GI cache to use less hard drive space. The datafiles are LZ4-compressed by default, and the naming scheme is a hash and a file extension. Unity computes the hashes based on the inputs to the lighting system, so changing any of the following settings, properties or assets can lead to lighting recomputation: — Materials (Textures, Albedo, Emission) — Lights — Geometry — Static flags — Light Probe groups — Reflection probes — Lightmap Parameters Tip: If you need to access the raw Enlighten Realtime Global Illumination data, disable Cache Compression and clear the cache. |
| Clean Cache | Use this button to clear the cache directory. It’s not safe to delete the GI Cache directory manually while the Editor is running. This is because the Editor creates the GiCache folder when it starts and maintains a set of references to those files. The Clean Cache button ensures that the Editor releases all references to the files on disk before they’re deleted. |
| Cache size is | Displays the current size of the cache. |
| Cache Folder Location | Displays the current cache folder location. |
Package Manager
Use the Package Manager preferences to change the default cache location for the following packages:
- Packages installed from the Unity Registry
- Packages downloaded from the Asset Store
Scene View
Use the Scene View preferences to customize object placement and visibility while editing.
Scene View scope on the Preferences window
| Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Create Objects at Origin | Enable to create new objects at origin (as opposed to the Scene pivot). Disabled by default. |
| Create Objects with Constrained Proportions | Enable to define the default behavior for Scale in the Transform component. If enabled, when you adjust the value of a scale axis, the other values adjust proportionately. |
| Line Thickness | Set the line thickness of your transform tools. |
| Enable filtering while searching | Enable to gray out any non-matching items in the Scene view. Enabled by default. |
| Enable filtering while editing LOD groups A component to manage level of detail (LOD) for GameObjects. More info See in Glossary |
Enable to gray out other objects in the scene while editing level of detail (LOD) groups. Enabled by default. |
Search
Use the Search preferences to set your search preferences for the Editor.
-
Enter ? (question mark) in the search field and select Open Search Preferences from the results.
-
From More Options (:) in the top-left of the Search window, select Preferences.
Search Preferences
Indexing
indexing page
Set the Custom index pages by selecting them or deselecting them from the Custom Indexers dropdown list.
Custom package preferences
Some Asset Store or Unity packages add their own custom preferences to the Preferences window. Typically, these use the package name as the preferences category. In this example, you can see the Cinemachine package preferences:
Package-specific preferences appear in the scope list
For information about a specific package’s preferences, see the documentation for that package. This section contains documentation for standard Unity preferences only.
How do I reset my Unity configuration?
I’ve been messing around with Unity and broke something, how do I «start over»?
/.conf/dconf/user; unity No sudo, apt, or dumbledorfing required.
12 Answers 12
The following command does not work on newer distributions (as the reply is ERROR: the reset option is now deprecated ).
For 12.04 and older
The simplest way is to hit «open a Terminal» or hit Alt — F2 and run the command:
/.conf/dconf/user; unity No sudo, apt, or dumbledorfing required.
For 12.10 — 13.04
I, along with jokerdino and amithkk have created a python script that cleanly resets Unity for Quantal and above.
The script is now bundled with Unity Tweak Tool. You can install it using
For 13.10 & 14.04
To reset Unity, do
Note — if this does not resolve your Unity issues then the following Q&A may apply to you:
What happens behind the scenes?
Simple. We chase each individual setting that Unity uses, and reset them to their default values, and then reload unity to apply changes. Ah yes, we also kill Unity and compiz before we start, since it is known to get tricky if we change settings under compiz’s nose.
Why is this better compared to using dconf-editor or dconf reset ?
- Didier Roche (didrocks), the author of unity python wrapper says dconf reset does not work in all cases.
- The consensus among Unity developers is that the settings be modified using Gsettings instead of dconf directly.
What exactly is dconf ?
A little history
- The configuration settings were managed by gconf earlier.
- Gnome provides Gsettings as a replacement for gconf.
- Gsettings is a high level api that manipulates the settings stored in a backend.
- Unity stores its settings in the backend dconf since it can be loaded much faster than gconf.
As Kees said, running unity —reset will reset all of the launcher options, but it won’t remove your custom favorites. To also remove any launchers you’ve added to the launcher, run
I would recommend running the gsettings command before unity —reset , so that you won’t have to restart unity for the gsettings key reset to take effect.
- Login into Ubuntu
- Open a terminal by hitting Ctrl + Alt + T
Insert and run this commands:
Restart, this should work.
For Ubuntu 12.10 (Revised, again)
OK, here it is. You can use ‘dconf reset’ as previously outlined and will do exactly what ‘unity —reset’ used to do.
Apparently it would actually be better to stop compiz before using the ‘dconf reset’. Which I’m currently working on.
You can also look at the settings you have:
To reset the unity icons you can still use
This information is from a variety of sources, after much googling.
Install ubuntu tweak. The beauty of ubuntu tweak is that you can save desktop and application settings and restore after you messed something up. It also has a function to go back to original settings.
If you’ve messed with the indicators and need to reset those see this question:
Sometimes people accidentally turn off the Unity plugin or setting an unsupported option in CCSM can cause it to break.
You can turn it back on by following these directions:
For 12.10 — 13.04 [maybe older]
I use this workaround to reset the unity configuration. But with Unity, it resets all configurations such as the custom wallpaper, themes, icon themes etc.
Delete the user specific dconf database file:
Then Logout and Login again.
IMPORTANT! Be sure that you BACKUP this file, because you lose ALL Unity’s settings and switch to default!
For 11.10 and later
I ran across this thread after my Unity 2d desktop suddenly refused to display launchpad and title bar (for all users), for no apparent reason. Autohide was disabled. Reenabling Unity in CCSM as sugggested in other threads was part of the solution, but none of the other measures suggested in this and several other related threads, including, but not limited to:
helped me to completely resolve these symptoms.
would not work for me. After delivering a variety of error and information messages, it would always hang at:
I noticed that the error message delivered by:
was similar to some of the errors reported by unity —reset:
error while loading shared libraries: libGL.so.1:
After extensive searching, I found the following solution (courtesy of J.D. Bartlett):
This not only allowed both unity_support_test-p and unity —reset to run, it also allowed Unity 2d to start. Like the author of the above-mentioned post, I have no idea what caused my problems. I am also still not sure whether the link is a complete solution, or whether I should reinstall the graphics libraries completely, but since creating the link, everything has worked fine for a few weeks now.
Сброс настроек Unity и Compiz в Ubuntu (всех версий)
Иногда возникает надобность сброса настроек оболочки Unity или оконного менеджера Compiz к настройкам по умолчанию. Это может быть вызвано тем, что вы слишком «перестарались», настраивая оболочку через различные твикеры или прямым редактированием конфига. Либо вам просто хочется привести Unity и Compiz к настройкам по дефолту после экспериментов над ними.
В любом случае, сбросить настройки Unity и/или Compiz достаточно просто. Но тут надо отметить важный момент. В Ubuntu 12.10 используется другая система хранения и редактирования настроек Unity: если раньше (в 11.04, 11.10, 12.04) это был Gconf, то теперь — Gsettings. Поэтому в данной инструкции рассмотрены оба варианта (спасибо сайту webupd8 за оригинальные статьи).
Сброс настроек Unity и Compiz в Ubuntu 12.10 и выше (проверено вплоть до 14.10)
Сначала установим пакет dconf-tools:
А теперь сбросим настройки Compiz и Unity на установки по умолчанию данной командой:
Осталось перезапустить оболочку Unity:
Кстати, для просмотра настроек оконного менеджера Compiz можно выполнить следующую команду:
Сброс иконок на панели Unity выполняется с помощью команды:
Как видим, все гениальное просто.
Сброс настроек Unity и Compiz в Ubuntu 11.04, 11.10, 12.04
Так как в старых версиях Ubuntu используется Gconf для настройки, настройки здесь сбрасываются следующим образом.
Сброс настроек оболочки Unity:
Сброс иконок на панели Unity к значениям по умолчанию:
Сброс настроек Compiz выполняется так. Если Unity 3D, например, не запускается, команды можно выполнить в другой оболочке (Unity 2D, GNOME. ), или переключившись в виртуальную консоль при помощи комбинации клавиш Ctrl+Alt+F1 (по завершении нажмите Ctrl+Alt+F7 для возврата в графический режим):
How to reset Unity (3D) 4.2 to "factory settings"?
I have a problem with Unity, that everything has been reversed. I mean, if the objects’ moving axises are not up, right, Z, but down, left, Z for example. If I moving a cube up with the moving axis, it will going down on the game view .
I don’t know why it happened, and now I don’t know how to reset it back to the «good» settings.
1 Answer 1
Chances are you’ve got all your objects that you’ve been trying to do this with, or a parent of the objects you’re trying to move, rotated 180 degrees on at least one axis, and are trying to move the object in «local» mode. If this is the case, you’ll see a little button up by the transform tools, in the editor, that says «local.» Click that so it says «global.»
The other possibility is that you’ve got the viewport upside down, and just need to rotate around to get everything situated, again.
Unity doesn’t just flip its axes, like that. Those axes -never- change, in global space. Only in local space.
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