Options

Micro stores all of the user configuration in its configuration directory.

Micro uses $MICRO_CONFIG_HOME as the configuration directory. If this environment variable is not set, it uses $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/micro instead. If that environment variable is not set, it uses ~/.config/micro as the configuration directory. In the documentation, we use ~/.config/micro to refer to the configuration directory (even if it may in fact be somewhere else if you have set either of the above environment variables).

Here are the available options:

• autoindent: when creating a new line, use the same indentation as the previous line.

  default value: true

• autosave: automatically save the buffer every n seconds, where n is the value of the autosave option. Also when quitting on a modified buffer, micro will automatically save and quit. Be warned, this option saves the buffer without prompting the user, so data may be overwritten. If this option is set to 0, no autosaving is performed.

  default value: 0

• autosu: When a file is saved that the user doesn't have permission to modify, micro will ask if the user would like to use super user privileges to save the file. If this option is enabled, micro will automatically attempt to use super user privileges to save without asking the user.

  default value: false

• backup: micro will automatically keep backups of all open buffers. Backups are stored in ~/.config/micro/backups and are removed when the buffer is closed cleanly. In the case of a system crash or a micro crash, the contents of the buffer can be recovered automatically by opening the file that was being edited before the crash, or manually by searching for the backup in the backup directory. Backups are made in the background for newly modified buffers every 8 seconds, or when micro detects a crash.

  default value: true

• backupdir: the directory micro should place backups in. For the default value of "" (empty string), the backup directory will be ConfigDir/backups, which is ~/.config/micro/backups by default. The directory specified for backups will be created if it does not exist.

  default value: "" (empty string)

• basename: in the infobar and tabbar, show only the basename of the file being edited rather than the full path.

  default value: false

• clipboard: specifies how micro should access the system clipboard. Possible values are:

  • external: accesses clipboard via an external tool, such as xclip/xsel or wl-clipboard on Linux, pbcopy/pbpaste on MacOS, and system calls on Windows. On Linux, if you do not have one of the tools installed, or if they are not working, micro will throw an error and use an internal clipboard.
  • terminal: accesses the clipboard via your terminal emulator. Note that there is limited support among terminal emulators for this feature (called OSC 52). Terminals that are known to work are Kitty (enable reading with clipboard_control setting), iTerm2 (only copying), st, rxvt-unicode and xterm if enabled (see > help copypaste for details). Note that Gnome-terminal does not support this feature. With this setting, copy-paste will work over ssh. See > help copypaste for details.
  • internal: micro will use an internal clipboard.

  default value: external

• colorcolumn: if this is not set to 0, it will display a column at the specified column. This is useful if you want column 80 to be highlighted special for example.

  default value: 0

• colorscheme: use the given colorscheme. This setting is global only. The colorscheme can be either one of the colorschemes that micro comes with by default (such as default, solarized or solarized-tc) which are embedded in the micro binary, or a custom colorscheme stored in ~/.config/micro/colorschemes/$(option).micro where $(option) is the option value. You can read more about micro's colorschemes and see the list of default colorschemes in > help colors.

  default value: default

• cursorline: highlight the line that the cursor is on in a different color (the color is defined by the colorscheme you are using).

  default value: true

• detectlimit: if this is not set to 0, it will limit the amount of first lines in a file that are matched to determine the filetype. A higher limit means better accuracy of guessing the filetype, but also taking more time.

  default value: 100

• diffgutter: display diff indicators before lines.

  default value: false

• divchars: specifies the "divider" characters used for the dividing line between vertical/horizontal splits. The first character is for vertical dividers, and the second is for horizontal dividers. By default, for horizontal splits the statusline serves as a divider, but if the statusline is disabled the horizontal divider character will be used.

  default value: |-

• divreverse: colorschemes provide the color (foreground and background) for the characters displayed in split dividers. With this option enabled, the colors specified by the colorscheme will be reversed (foreground and background colors swapped).

  default value: true

• encoding: the encoding to open and save files with. Supported encodings are listed at https://www.w3.org/TR/encoding/.

  default value: utf-8

• eofnewline: micro will automatically add a newline to the end of the file if one does not exist.

  default value: true

• fakecursor: forces micro to render the cursor using terminal colors rather than the actual terminal cursor. This is useful when the terminal's cursor is slow or otherwise unavailable/undesirable to use. Note: This option defaults to true in case micro is used in the legacy Windows Console.

  default value: false

• fastdirty: this determines what kind of algorithm micro uses to determine if a buffer is modified or not. When fastdirty is on, micro just uses a boolean modified that is set to true as soon as the user makes an edit. This is fast, but can be inaccurate. If fastdirty is off, then micro will hash the current buffer against a hash of the original file (created when the buffer was loaded). This is more accurate but obviously more resource intensive. This option will be automatically enabled for the current buffer if the file size exceeds 50KB.

  default value: false

• fileformat: this determines what kind of line endings micro will use for the file. Unix line endings are just \n (linefeed) whereas dos line endings are \r\n (carriage return + linefeed). The two possible values for this option are unix and dos. The fileformat will be automatically detected (when you open an existing file) and displayed on the statusline, but this option is useful if you would like to change the line endings or if you are starting a new file. Changing this option while editing a file will change its line endings. Opening a file with this option set will only have an effect if the file is empty/newly created, because otherwise the fileformat will be automatically detected from the existing line endings.

  default value: unix on Unix systems, dos on Windows

• filetype: sets the filetype for the current buffer. Set this option to off to completely disable filetype detection.

  default value: unknown. This will be automatically overridden depending on the file you open.

• helpsplit: sets the split type to be used by the help command. Possible values:

  • vsplit: open help in a vertical split pane
  • hsplit: open help in a horizontal split pane

  default value: hsplit

• hlsearch: highlight all instances of the searched text after a successful search. This highlighting can be temporarily turned off via the UnhighlightSearch action (triggered by the Esc key by default) or toggled on/off via the ToggleHighlightSearch action. Note that these actions don't change the hlsearch setting. As long as hlsearch is set to true, the next search will have the highlighting turned on again.

  default value: false

• hltaberrors: highlight tabs when spaces are expected, and spaces when tabs are expected. More precisely: if tabstospaces option is on, highlight all tab characters; if tabstospaces is off, highlight space characters in the initial indent part of the line.

  default value: false

• hltrailingws: highlight trailing whitespaces at ends of lines. Note that it doesn't highlight newly added trailing whitespaces that naturally occur while typing text. It highlights only nasty forgotten trailing whitespaces.

  default value: false

• ignorecase: perform case-insensitive searches.

  default value: true

• incsearch: enable incremental search in "Find" prompt (matching as you type).

  default value: true

• indentchar: sets the character to be shown to display tab characters. This option is deprecated, use the tab key in showchars option instead.

  default value: (space)

• infobar: enables the line at the bottom of the editor where messages are printed. This option is global only.

  default value: true

• keepautoindent: when using autoindent, whitespace is added for you. This option determines if when you move to the next line without any insertions the whitespace that was added should be deleted to remove trailing whitespace. By default, the autoindent whitespace is deleted if the line was left empty.

  default value: false

• keymenu: display the nano-style key menu at the bottom of the screen. Note that ToggleKeyMenu is bound to Alt-g by default and this is displayed in the statusline. To disable the key binding, bind Alt-g to None.

  default value: false

• lockbindings: prevent plugins and lua scripts from binding any keys. Any custom actions must be binded manually either via commands like bind or by modifying the bindings.json file.

  default value: false

• matchbrace: show matching braces for '()', '{}', '[]' when the cursor is on a brace character or (if matchbraceleft is enabled) next to it.

  default value: true

• matchbraceleft: simulate I-beam cursor behavior (cursor located not on a character but "between" characters): when showing matching braces, if there is no brace character directly under the cursor, match the brace character to the left of the cursor instead. Also when jumping to the matching brace, move the cursor either to the matching brace character or to the character next to it, depending on whether the initial cursor position was on the brace character or next to it (i.e. "inside" or "outside" the braces). With matchbraceleft disabled, micro will only match the brace directly under the cursor and will only jump to precisely to the matching brace.

  default value: true

• matchbracestyle: whether to underline or highlight matching braces when matchbrace is enabled. The color of highlight is determined by the match-brace field in the current theme. Possible values:

  • underline: underline matching braces.
  • highlight: use match-brace style from the current theme.

  default value: underline

• mkparents: if a file is opened on a path that does not exist, the file cannot be saved because the parent directories don't exist. This option lets micro automatically create the parent directories in such a situation.

  default value: false

• mouse: mouse support. When mouse support is disabled, usually the terminal will be able to access mouse events which can be useful if you want to copy from the terminal instead of from micro (if over ssh for example, because the terminal has access to the local clipboard and micro does not).

  default value: true

• multiopen: specifies how to layout multiple files opened at startup. Most useful as a command-line option, like -multiopen vsplit. Possible values correspond to commands (see > help commands) that open files:

  • tab: open each file in a separate tab.
  • vsplit: open files side-by-side.
  • hsplit: open files stacked top to bottom.

  default value: tab

• pageoverlap: the number of lines from the current view to keep in view when paging up or down. If this is set to 2, for instance, and you page down, the last two lines of the previous page will be the first two lines of the next page.

  default value: 2

• parsecursor: if enabled, this will cause micro to parse filenames such as file.txt:10:5 as requesting to open file.txt with the cursor at line 10 and column 5. The column number can also be dropped to open the file at a given line and column 0. Note that with this option enabled it is not possible to open a file such as file.txt:10:5, where :10:5 is part of the filename. It is also possible to open a file with a certain cursor location by using the +LINE:COL flag syntax. See micro -help for the command line options.

  default value: false

• paste: treat characters sent from the terminal in a single chunk as a paste event rather than a series of manual key presses. If you are pasting using the terminal keybinding (not Ctrl-v, which is micro's default paste keybinding) then it is a good idea to enable this option during the paste and disable once the paste is over. See > help copypaste for details about copying and pasting in a terminal environment.

  default value: false

• permbackup: this option causes backups (see backup option) to be permanently saved. With permanent backups, micro will not remove backups when files are closed and will never apply them to existing files. Use this option if you are interested in manually managing your backup files.

  default value: false

• pluginchannels: list of URLs pointing to plugin channels for downloading and installing plugins. A plugin channel consists of a json file with links to plugin repos, which store information about plugin versions and download URLs. By default, this option points to the official plugin channel hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel.

  default value: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel/master/channel.json

• pluginrepos: a list of links to plugin repositories.

  default value: ``

• readonly: when enabled, disallows edits to the buffer. It is recommended to only ever set this option locally using setlocal.

  default value: false

• relativeruler: make line numbers display relatively. If set to true, all lines except for the line that the cursor is located will display the distance from the cursor's line.

  default value: false

• reload: controls the reload behavior of the current buffer in case the file has changed. The available options are prompt, auto & disabled.

  default value: prompt

• rmtrailingws: micro will automatically trim trailing whitespaces at ends of lines. Note: This setting overrides keepautoindent and isn't used at timed autosave or forced autosave in case the buffer didn't change. A manual save will involve the action regardless if the buffer has been changed or not.

  default value: false

• ruler: display line numbers.

  default value: true

• savecursor: remember where the cursor was last time the file was opened and put it there when you open the file again. Information is saved to ~/.config/micro/buffers/

  default value: false

• savehistory: remember command history between closing and re-opening micro. Information is saved to ~/.config/micro/buffers/history.

  default value: true

• saveundo: when this option is on, undo is saved even after you close a file so if you close and reopen a file, you can keep undoing. Information is saved to ~/.config/micro/buffers/.

  default value: false

• scrollbar: display a scroll bar

  default value: false

• scrollbarchar: specifies the character used for displaying the scrollbar

  default value: |

• scrollmargin: margin at which the view starts scrolling when the cursor approaches the edge of the view.

  default value: 3

• scrollspeed: amount of lines to scroll for one scroll event.

  default value: 2

• showchars: sets what characters to be shown to display various invisible characters in the file. The characters shown will not be inserted into files. This option is specified in the form of key1=value1,key2=value2,....

  Here are the list of keys:

  • space: space characters
  • tab: tab characters. If set, overrides the indentchar option.
  • ispace: space characters at indent position before the first visible character in a line. If this is not set, space will be shown instead.
  • itab: tab characters before the first visible character in a line. If this is not set, tab will be shown instead.

  Only tab and itab can display multiple characters (if possible), otherwise only the first character will be displayed.

  An example of this option value could be tab=>,space=.,itab=|>,ispace=|

  The color of the shown character is determined by the indent-char field in the current theme rather than the default text color.

  default value: ``

• smartpaste: add leading whitespace when pasting multiple lines. This will attempt to preserve the current indentation level when pasting an unindented block.

  default value: true

• softwrap: wrap lines that are too long to fit on the screen.

  default value: false

• splitbottom: when a horizontal split is created, create it below the current split.

  default value: true

• splitright: when a vertical split is created, create it to the right of the current split.

  default value: true

• statusformatl: format string definition for the left-justified part of the statusline. Special directives should be placed inside $(). Special directives include: filename, modified, line, col, lines, percentage, opt, overwrite, bind. The opt and bind directives take either an option or an action afterward and fill in the value of the option or the key bound to the action.

  default value: $(filename) $(modified)$(overwrite)($(line),$(col)) $(status.paste)| ft:$(opt:filetype) | $(opt:fileformat) | $(opt:encoding)

• statusformatr: format string definition for the right-justified part of the statusline.

  default value: $(bind:ToggleKeyMenu): bindings, $(bind:ToggleHelp): help

• statusline: display the status line at the bottom of the screen.

  default value: true

• sucmd: specifies the super user command. On most systems this is "sudo" but on BSD it can be "doas." This option can be customized and is only used when saving with su.

  default value: sudo

• syntax: enables syntax highlighting.

  default value: true

• tabhighlight: inverts the tab characters' (filename, save indicator, etc) colors with respect to the tab bar.

  default value: false

• tabmovement: navigate spaces at the beginning of lines as if they are tabs (e.g. move over 4 spaces at once). This option only does anything if tabstospaces is on.

  default value: false

• tabreverse: reverses the tab bar colors when active.

  default value: true

• tabsize: the size in spaces that a tab character should be displayed with.

  default value: 4

• tabstospaces: use spaces instead of tabs. Note: This option will be overridden by the ftoptions plugin for certain filetypes. To disable this behavior, add "ftoptions": false to your config. See issue #2213 for more details.

  default value: false

• truecolor: controls whether micro will use true colors (24-bit colors) when using a colorscheme with true colors, such as solarized-tc or atom-dark.

  • auto: enable usage of true color if micro detects that it is supported by the terminal, otherwise disable it.
  • on: force usage of true color even if micro does not detect its support by the terminal (of course this is not guaranteed to work well unless the terminal actually supports true color).
  • off: disable true color usage.

  Note: The change will take effect after the next start of micro.

  default value: auto

• useprimary (only useful on unix): defines whether or not micro will use the primary clipboard to copy selections in the background. This does not affect the normal clipboard using Ctrl-c and Ctrl-v.

  default value: true

• wordwrap: wrap long lines by words, i.e. break at spaces. This option only does anything if softwrap is on.

  default value: false

• xterm: micro will assume that the terminal it is running in conforms to xterm-256color regardless of what the $TERM variable actually contains. Enabling this option may cause unwanted effects if your terminal in fact does not conform to the xterm-256color standard.

  default value: false

Plugin options: all plugins come with a special option to enable or disable them. The option is a boolean with the same name as the plugin itself.

By default, the following plugins are provided, each with an option to enable or disable them:

• autoclose: automatically closes brackets, quotes, etc...
• comment: provides automatic commenting for a number of languages
• ftoptions: alters some default options depending on the filetype
• linter: provides extensible linting for many languages
• literate: provides advanced syntax highlighting for the Literate programming tool.
• status: provides some extensions to the status line (integration with Git and more).
• diff: integrates the diffgutter option with Git. If you are in a Git directory, the diff gutter will show changes with respect to the most recent Git commit rather than the diff since opening the file.

Any option you set in the editor will be saved to the file ~/.config/micro/settings.json so, in effect, your configuration file will be created for you. If you'd like to take your configuration with you to another machine, simply copy the settings.json to the other machine.

Settings.json file

The settings.json file should go in your configuration directory (by default at ~/.config/micro), and should contain only options which have been modified from their default setting. Here is the full list of options in json format, so that you can see what the formatting should look like.

{
    "autoclose": true,
    "autoindent": true,
    "autosave": 0,
    "autosu": false,
    "backup": true,
    "backupdir": "",
    "basename": false,
    "clipboard": "external",
    "colorcolumn": 0,
    "colorscheme": "default",
    "comment": true,
    "cursorline": true,
    "detectlimit": 100,
    "diff": true,
    "diffgutter": false,
    "divchars": "|-",
    "divreverse": true,
    "encoding": "utf-8",
    "eofnewline": true,
    "fakecursor": false,
    "fastdirty": false,
    "fileformat": "unix",
    "filetype": "unknown",
    "ftoptions": true,
    "helpsplit": "hsplit",
    "hlsearch": false,
    "hltaberrors": false,
    "hltrailingws": false,
    "ignorecase": true,
    "incsearch": true,
    "indentchar": " ",
    "infobar": true,
    "initlua": true,
    "keepautoindent": false,
    "keymenu": false,
    "linter": true,
    "literate": true,
    "matchbrace": true,
    "matchbraceleft": true,
    "matchbracestyle": "underline",
    "mkparents": false,
    "mouse": true,
    "multiopen": "tab",
    "pageoverlap": 2,
    "parsecursor": false,
    "paste": false,
    "permbackup": false,
    "pluginchannels": [
        "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/micro-editor/plugin-channel/master/channel.json"
    ],
    "pluginrepos": [],
    "readonly": false,
    "relativeruler": false,
    "reload": "prompt",
    "rmtrailingws": false,
    "ruler": true,
    "savecursor": false,
    "savehistory": true,
    "saveundo": false,
    "scrollbar": false,
    "scrollbarchar": "|",
    "scrollmargin": 3,
    "scrollspeed": 2,
    "showchars": "",
    "smartpaste": true,
    "softwrap": false,
    "splitbottom": true,
    "splitright": true,
    "status": true,
    "statusformatl": "$(filename) $(modified)$(overwrite)($(line),$(col)) $(status.paste)| ft:$(opt:filetype) | $(opt:fileformat) | $(opt:encoding)",
    "statusformatr": "$(bind:ToggleKeyMenu): bindings, $(bind:ToggleHelp): help",
    "statusline": true,
    "sucmd": "sudo",
    "syntax": true,
    "tabhighlight": true,
    "tabmovement": false,
    "tabreverse": false,
    "tabsize": 4,
    "tabstospaces": false,
    "useprimary": true,
    "wordwrap": false,
    "xterm": false
}

Global and local settings

You can set these settings either globally or locally. Locally means that the setting won't be saved to ~/.config/micro/settings.json and that it will only be set in the current buffer. Setting an option globally is the default, and will set the option in all buffers. Use the setlocal command to set an option locally rather than globally.

The colorscheme option is global only, and the filetype option is local only. To set an option locally, use setlocal instead of set.

In the settings.json file you can also put set options locally by specifying either a glob or a filetype. Here is an example which has tabstospaces on for all files except Go files, and tabsize 4 for all files except Ruby files:

{
    "ft:go": {
        "tabstospaces": false
    },
    "ft:ruby": {
        "tabsize": 2
    },
    "tabstospaces": true,
    "tabsize": 4
}

Or similarly you can match with globs:

{
    "*.go": {
        "tabstospaces": false
    },
    "*.rb": {
        "tabsize": 2
    },
    "tabstospaces": true,
    "tabsize": 4
}