App Settings

The general settings customize your experience when using Publii, rather than changing individual websites that the app has created. There are six areas in this section, starting with a Basic settings block that contains the following options.

Basic settings

Publii's basic app settings for appearance, startup, image processing and listings — Adjust Publii's appearance, startup behaviour and the information shown in your listings.

Colour theme - Set the colour theme for Publii; choose between light or dark mode, or automatically use the same setting as your desktop.
Load at start - This option sets which of your websites will be opened when you start Publii, or defaults to the last-used website.
Time format - Set your timestamps to be in 12 or 24-hour format.
Image resize engine - Set which engine should handle image manipulation. Sharp is faster, but if you encounter problems when creating or regenerating thumbnails, try switching to Jimp.
Interface scale - Adjust the size of text, icons and other interface elements for more comfortable reading and editing. This is particularly useful on high-resolution displays or if you prefer larger controls.
Automatically adjust sidebar width - When enabled, Publii uses a narrower sidebar in smaller windows to leave more room for your content.
Allow notifications centre to download and display notifications data - Allows Publii's notifications centre to download and display notifications.
Always save search state - When enabled, Publii will save the current search results even when creating a new post, allowing you to return to the listing. By default, Publii only saves search results when opening a post to edit.
Show modification date - When enabled, the modification date will be displayed under the publication date in the post and page listings.
Show modification date as column - Displays the modification date in a separate column instead. This option is available when Show modification date is enabled.
Show slugs across all listing views - When enabled, the slug will be displayed under the title in the post, page, tag and author listings.
Show post tags on the listing - When enabled, the tags will be displayed under the post title in the post list.
Show plugin icons on the listing - Displays plugin icons in the plugin listing.
Use wider scrollbars - Enables wider scrollbars in the Publii app; useful if you use a high resolution and want the scrollbars to be more visible.
Show tooltips - Displays tooltips with additional information about controls and actions in the app.

Files location

The second block in this section is the Files location block; there are two locations available.

Sites location and Backup location fields in Publii's app settings — Choose where Publii stores your websites and the backups you create.

Sites location - Define where the files for the websites you create with Publii, including their themes, are stored. This can be a local directory or a folder synced with a cloud service such as Dropbox.
Backup location - Defines where backups created in the Backups section of the app are stored; this can also be a local directory or a folder synced with a cloud service.

Leave either field blank to use its default directory. When you change the sites location, Publii asks you to confirm moving your existing websites to the new folder. If you only want to switch to another folder, enable Change sites location without moving existing sites to the new folder, which appears after you change the location. Changing the backup location applies to new backups; earlier backups must be moved manually if you want them in the new folder.

The Preview location option is no longer available. Preview files are now stored within each website's folder.

Default list order

The third block covers Default list order; this tells Publii how you want your posts, pages, tags and authors to be displayed in their respective listings. By default, posts, tags and authors are sorted descending by ID, with the newest item first. Pages use hierarchical order. The available options here are:

Default ordering controls for posts, pages, tags and authors — Set the default order for each listing, including hierarchical order for pages.

Default post order - Sets the ordering for the Posts listing.
Default page order - Sets the ordering for the Pages listing.
Default tag order - Defines the ordering for the Tags listing.
Default author order - Sets the ordering for the Authors listing.

Posts and pages can be ordered by ID, title, created date, modified date or author, in ascending or descending order. Pages also offer Hierarchical order. Tags and authors can be ordered by ID, name or posts count, in ascending or descending order. These settings affect the listings in the app, not the order of content on your published website.

Options for editors

The fourth block in this section contains Options for editors; that is, the people that write and edit posts. These options set the default behaviour when writing posts. The available options are:

Choose the editor's font size and family, and whether saving closes the editor by default.

Font size (px) - Sets the standard font size in pixels that the post editor should use.
Font family - Defines the basic font that the post editor should use: Sans serif or Serif.
Close post editor on save - If enabled, the post editor will default to using the Save & Close option for the save button; this can still be changed manually when editing a document by clicking on the down-arrow on the right side of the button.

Options for developers

The fifth block in this section covers Options for developers, with tools that may be useful for developers creating their own themes or branches of Publii. The available options in this section are:

Developer settings for automatically opening DevTools, choosing its position and enabling advanced preview — Configure DevTools and enable an option to generate preview files without opening a browser.

Open DevTools automatically in the Main Window - When enabled, this option will automatically load DevTools for troubleshooting as soon as Publii is loaded. Requires a restart of the app before changes will take effect.
DevTools position - Choose a separate or undocked window, or dock DevTools to the right, bottom or left of the app window. Requires a restart of the app before changes will take effect.
Enable advanced preview - Adds a Generate preview files action to the sidebar, allowing you to generate the site preview without opening your browser. The regular Preview site button still generates and opens the preview.

Experimental features

The final section of the App settings is for Experimental features. This section contains features that are still being tested or have not been fully implemented. Since they're experimental, we can't guarantee they will work properly; activate them at your own risk. The currently available options in this section are:

Auto-beautify source code in WYSIWYG editor - If enabled, when viewing a post's content in the editor as source HTML code, it will be automatically formatted to be more readable rather than minified.
Use alternative FTP library for deployment - Try enabling this option if you encounter deployment issues, especially if your hosting uses IPv6 for the server address.
Show File Manager in sidebar - This option adds a link to the File Manager to the main sidebar menu in the Publii app for easier and faster access.

Once you've made your changes, click Save settings to save your preferences.