Sync Your VS Code Setup | Research Workflow Guidebook

What Settings Sync is

Settings Sync keeps your VS Code setup aligned across machines.

It is useful when you reinstall VS Code or move to another computer and want your old setup back quickly. Once it is enabled, you do not need to rebuild settings, keyboard shortcuts, snippets, extensions, and profiles from scratch.

The official documentation lists settings, keyboard shortcuts, user snippets, user tasks, UI State, extensions, and profiles. In VS Code 1.117.0, the Settings Sync picker shows these items:

Settings
Keyboard Shortcuts
Snippets
Tasks
MCP Servers
UI State
Extensions
Profiles
Prompts and Instructions

At first, it is usually enough to leave these options at the default selection and start there.

Turn on Settings Sync with GitHub

The process is straightforward.

Open the Command Palette with Cmd+Shift+P.
Run Settings Sync: Backup and Sync Settings....
Keep the default sync items selected and choose Sign in.
In the account picker, choose Sign in with GitHub.
Finish the GitHub sign-in flow in the browser and return to VS Code.

Run Settings Sync: Backup and Sync Settings... from the Command Palette.

VS Code Command Palette showing Settings Sync Backup and Sync Settings

Leave the sync options at the defaults

When you first turn on Settings Sync, VS Code shows the list of items that can be synchronized.

For this guide, there is no need to customize that list. In most cases, the default checked state is enough to restore the same working environment without extra adjustment.

Keep the default checked items unless you already know that one category should stay local.

Example VS Code Settings Sync item list with default options checked

After selecting Sign in, choose Sign in with GitHub.

Example VS Code account picker with Sign in with GitHub selected

Restore the same setup on another machine

After installing VS Code on another machine, sign in with the same GitHub account to bring back the saved setup.

At that point, VS Code may ask how to apply the cloud settings on the current machine. Merge keeps local settings and combines them with the cloud copy. Replace Local overwrites the local setup with the cloud copy, so use it only when the current VS Code installation does not contain local settings you need to preserve.

References

This page is based on the following documentation.

VS Code Settings Sync VS Code Profiles GitHub authentication