# Configuring qutebrowser

Important | qutebrowser’s configuration system was completely rewritten in September 2017. This information is not applicable to older releases, and older information elsewhere might be outdated.

## qutebrowser’s config files

qutebrowser releases before v1.0.0 had a `qutebrowser.conf` and `keys.conf` file. Those are not used anymore since that release - see "Migrating older configurations" for information on how to migrate to the new config.

When using `:set` and `:bind`, changes are saved to an `autoconfig.yml` file automatically. If you don’t want to have a config file which is curated by hand, you can simply use those - see "Configuring qutebrowser via the user interface" for details.

For more advanced configuration, you can write a `config.py` file - see "Configuring qutebrowser via config.py". When a `config.py` exists, the `autoconfig.yml` file is not read anymore by default. You need to load it from `config.py` if you want settings changed via `:set`/`:bind` to persist between restarts.

## Configuring qutebrowser via the user interface

The easy (but less flexible) way to configure qutebrowser is using its user interface or command line. Changes you make this way are immediately active (with the exception of a few settings, where this is pointed out in the documentation) and are persisted in an `autoconfig.yml` file.

The `autoconfig.yml` file is located in the "config" folder listed on the qute://version page. On macOS, the "auto config" folder is used, which is different from where hand-written config files are kept.

However, do not edit `autoconfig.yml` by hand. Instead, see the next section.

If you want to customize many settings, you can open the qute://settings page by running `:set` without any arguments, where all settings are listed and customizable.

Using the `:set` command and command completion, you can quickly set settings interactively, for example `:set tabs.position left`.

Some settings are also customizable for a given URL pattern by doing e.g. `:set --pattern=*://example.com/ content.images false`.

To get more help about a setting, use e.g. `:help tabs.position`.

To bind and unbind keys, you can use the `:bind` and `:unbind` commands:

- Binding the key chain `,v` to the `:spawn mpv {url}` command: `:bind ,v spawn mpv {url}`

- Unbinding the same key chain: `:unbind ,v`

Key chains starting with a comma are ideal for custom bindings, as the comma key will never be used in a default keybinding.

See the help pages linked above (or `:help :bind`, `:help :unbind`) for more information.

Other useful commands for config manipulation are `:config-unset` to reset a value to its default, `:config-clear` to reset the entire configuration, and `:config-cycle` to cycle a setting between different values.

## Configuring qutebrowser via config.py

For more powerful configuration possibilities, you can create a `config.py` file. Since it’s a Python file, you have much more flexibility for configuration. Note that qutebrowser will never touch this file - this means you’ll be responsible for updating it when upgrading to a newer qutebrowser version.

You can run `:config-edit` inside qutebrowser to open the file in your editor, `:config-source` to reload the file (`:config-edit` does this automatically), or `:config-write-py --defaults` to write a template file to work with.

The file should be located in the "config" location listed on qute://version, which is typically `~/.config/qutebrowser/config.py` on Linux, `~/.qutebrowser/config.py` on macOS, and `%APPDATA%/qutebrowser/config.py` on Windows.

Two global objects are pre-defined when running `config.py`: `c` and `config`.

### Changing settings

While you can set settings using the `config.set()` method (which is explained in the next section), it’s easier to use the `c` shorthand object to easily set settings like this:

config.py:

    c.tabs.position = "left"
    c.completion.shrink = True

Note that qutebrowser does some Python magic so it’s able to warn you about mistyped config settings. As an example, if you do `c.tabs.possition = "left"`, you’ll get an error when starting.

See the settings help page for all available settings. The accepted values depend on the type of the option. Commonly used are:

- Strings: `c.tabs.position = "left"`

- Booleans: `c.completion.shrink = True`

- Integers: `c.messages.timeout = 5000`

- Dictionaries:

  - `c.headers.custom = {'X-Hello': 'World', 'X-Awesome': 'yes'}` to override any other values in the dictionary.

  - `c.aliases['foo'] = 'message-info foo'` to add a single value.

- Lists:

  - `c.url.start_pages = ["https://www.qutebrowser.org/"]` to override any previous elements.

  - `c.url.start_pages.append("https://www.python.org/")` to add a new value.

Any other config types (e.g. a color) are specified as a string. The only exception is the `Regex` type, which can take either a string (with an `r` prefix to preserve backslashes) or a Python regex object:

- `c.hints.next_regexes.append(r'\bvor\b')`

- `c.hints.prev_regexes.append(re.compile(r'\bzurück\b'))`

If you want to read a setting, you can use the `c` object to do so as well: `c.colors.tabs.even.bg = c.colors.tabs.odd.bg`.

### Using strings for setting names

If you want to set settings based on their name as a string, use the `config.set` method:

config.py:

    # Equivalent to:
    # c.content.javascript.enabled = False
    config.set('content.javascript.enabled', False)

To read a setting, use the `config.get` method:

    # Equivalent to:
    # color = c.colors.completion.fg
    color = config.get('colors.completion.fg')

### Per-domain settings

Using `config.set`, some settings are also customizable for a given URL pattern:

    config.set('content.images', False, '*://example.com/')

Alternatively, you can use `with config.pattern(...) as p:` to get a shortcut similar to `c.` which is scoped to the given domain:

    with config.pattern('*://example.com/') as p:
        p.content.images = False

### Binding keys

While it’s possible to change the `bindings.commands` setting to bind keys, it’s preferred to use the `config.bind` command. Doing so ensures the commands are valid and normalizes different expressions which map to the same key.

For details on how to specify keys and the available modes, see the documentation for the `bindings.commands` setting.

To bind a key:

config.py:

    config.bind('<Ctrl-v>', 'spawn mpv {url}')

To bind a key in a mode other than `'normal'`, add a `mode` argument:

    config.bind('<Ctrl-y>', 'prompt-yes', mode='prompt')

To unbind a key (either a key which has been bound before, or a default binding):

    config.unbind('<Ctrl-v>', mode='normal')

To bind keys without modifiers, specify a key chain to bind as a string. Key chains starting with a comma are ideal for custom bindings, as the comma key will never be used in a default keybinding.

    config.bind(',v', 'spawn mpv {url}')

To suppress loading of any default keybindings, you can set `c.bindings.default = {}`.

### Loading `autoconfig.yml`

All customization done via the UI (`:set`, `:bind` and `:unbind`) is stored in the `autoconfig.yml` file. When a `config.py` file exists, `autoconfig.yml` is not loaded automatically. To load `autoconfig.yml` automatically, add the following snippet to `config.py`:

    config.load_autoconfig()

You can configure which file overrides the other by the location of the above code snippet. Place the snippet at the top to allow `config.py` to override `autoconfig.yml`. Place the snippet at the bottom for the opposite effect.

### Importing other modules

You can import any module from the Python standard library (e.g. `import os.path`), as well as any module installed in the environment qutebrowser is run with.

If you have an `utils.py` file in your qutebrowser config folder, you can import that via `import utils` as well.

While it’s in some cases possible to import code from the qutebrowser installation, doing so is unsupported and discouraged.

To read config data from a different file with `c` and `config` available, you can use `config.source('otherfile.py')` in your `config.py`.

### Getting the config directory

If you need to get the qutebrowser config directory, you can do so by reading `config.configdir`. Similarly, you can get the qutebrowser data directory via `config.datadir`.

This gives you a `pathlib.Path` object, on which you can use `/` to add more directory parts, or `str(...)` to get a string:

config.py:

    print(str(config.configdir / 'config.py'))

### Handling errors

If there are errors in your `config.py`, qutebrowser will try to apply as much of it as possible, and show an error dialog before starting.

qutebrowser tries to display errors which are easy to understand even for people who are not used to writing Python. If you see a config error which you find confusing or you think qutebrowser could handle better, please open an issue!

### Recipes

#### Reading a YAML file

To read a YAML config like this:

config.yml:

    tabs.position: left
    tabs.show: switching

You can use:

config.py:

    import yaml

    with (config.configdir / 'config.yml').open() as f:
        yaml_data = yaml.load(f)

    for k, v in yaml_data.items():
        config.set(k, v)

#### Reading a nested YAML file

To read a YAML file with nested values like this:

colors.yml:

    colors:
      statusbar:
        normal:
          bg: lime
          fg: black
        url:
          fg: red

You can use:

config.py:

    import yaml

    with (config.configdir / 'colors.yml').open() as f:
        yaml_data = yaml.load(f)

    def dict_attrs(obj, path=''):
        if isinstance(obj, dict):
            for k, v in obj.items():
                yield from dict_attrs(v, '{}.{}'.format(path, k) if path else k)
        else:
            yield path, obj

    for k, v in dict_attrs(yaml_data):
        config.set(k, v)

Note that this won’t work for values which are dictionaries.

#### Binding chained commands

If you have a lot of chained commands you want to bind, you can write a helper to do so:

    def bind_chained(key, *commands):
        config.bind(key, ' ;; '.join(commands))

    bind_chained('<Escape>', 'clear-keychain', 'search')

#### Reading colors from Xresources

You can use something like this to read colors from an `~/.Xresources` file:

    import subprocess

    def read_xresources(prefix):
        props = {}
        x = subprocess.run(['xrdb', '-query'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
        lines = x.stdout.decode().split('\n')
        for line in filter(lambda l : l.startswith(prefix), lines):
            prop, _, value = line.partition(':\t')
            props[prop] = value
        return props

    xresources = read_xresources('*')
    c.colors.statusbar.normal.bg = xresources['*.background']

#### Pre-built colorschemes

- A collection of base16 color-schemes can be found in base16-qutebrowser and used with base16-manager.

- Two implementations of the Nord colorscheme for qutebrowser exist: Linuus, KnownAsDon

- Dracula

- Pywal theme

#### Avoiding flake8 errors

If you use an editor with flake8 and pylint integration, it may have some complaints about invalid names, undefined variables, or missing docstrings. You can silence those with:

    # pylint: disable=C0111
    c = c  # noqa: F821 pylint: disable=E0602,C0103
    config = config  # noqa: F821 pylint: disable=E0602,C0103

For type annotation support (note that those imports aren’t guaranteed to be stable across qutebrowser versions):

    # pylint: disable=C0111
    from qutebrowser.config.configfiles import ConfigAPI  # noqa: F401
    from qutebrowser.config.config import ConfigContainer  # noqa: F401
    config = config  # type: ConfigAPI # noqa: F821 pylint: disable=E0602,C0103
    c = c  # type: ConfigContainer # noqa: F821 pylint: disable=E0602,C0103

#### emacs-like config

Various emacs/conkeror-like keybinding configs exist:

- jgkamat

- Kaligule

- nm0i

It’s also mostly possible to get rid of modal keybindings by setting `input.insert_mode.auto_enter` to `false`, and `input.forward_unbound_keys` to `all`.

## Migrating older configurations

qutebrowser does no automatic migration for the new configuration. However, there’s a special configdiff page (`qute://configdiff/old`) in qutebrowser, which will show you the changes you did in your old configuration, compared to the old defaults.

Other changes in default settings:

- In v1.1.x and newer, `<Up>` and `<Down>` navigate through command history if no text was entered yet. With v1.0.x, they always navigate through command history instead of selecting completion items. Use `<Tab>`/`<Shift-Tab>` to cycle through the completion instead. You can get back the old behavior by doing:

      :bind -m command <Up> completion-item-focus prev
      :bind -m command <Down> completion-item-focus next

  or always navigate through command history with

      :bind -m command <Up> command-history-prev
      :bind -m command <Down> command-history-next

- The default for `completion.web_history.max_items` is now set to `-1`, showing an unlimited number of items in the completion for `:open` as the new sqlite-based completion is much faster. If the `:open` completion is too slow on your machine, set an appropriate limit again.