Beancount ▸ Settings… (⌘,). Settings apply to the app as a whole, not to one ledger.
| Option |
Default |
What it does |
| Show income, liabilities and equity as positive |
On |
Beancount stores income, liabilities and equity as negative numbers. This shows them as positive in reports and charts. Presentation only: nothing changes in your ledger. Also in View ▸ Show Income, Liabilities & Equity as Positive. See How amounts are shown. |
| Option |
Default |
What it does |
| Font size |
13 pt |
From 9 to 24 pt. |
| Format on save (bean-format) |
On |
Aligns amounts each time you save, at the column the file already uses, so a save never reshuffles a whole file. See Formatting. |
| Wrap long lines |
Off |
Wraps lines that do not fit instead of scrolling sideways. |
| Show minimap |
Off |
The miniature overview of the file at the right edge. |
| Option |
Default |
What it does |
| Commit automatically when saving |
On |
Turns saving into committing. With it off, every save shows the Commit sheet. Saves that leave Beancount errors always ask, whatever this says. See Saving and committing. |
| Name |
Your Mac account’s full name |
The author recorded with each commit. |
| Email |
Empty |
Optional. Only worth filling in if you share the repository or push it to a service such as GitHub. |
The name and email are the app’s own: your ~/.gitconfig is not read or changed. If the repository sets its own user.name and user.email (git config user.name … inside it), those take precedence.
| Option |
Default |
What it does |
| Version |
|
The version you are running. |
| Check for updates automatically |
On |
Once a day, the app asks the Beancount Desktop website whether there is a newer version, and offers it. |
| Download and install updates automatically |
Off |
Installs new versions without asking; they take effect the next time the app starts. Only with automatic checks on. |
| Check Now |
|
Checks right away. Also Beancount ▸ Check for Updates…. |
Only updates signed by the developer are installed. If you installed with Homebrew, brew upgrade --cask --greedy beancount-desktop works too.
| Option |
What it does |
| Engine |
The versions in use: Beancount, Fava and Python. |
| Last load |
How many entries the ledger has and how long the last load took. |
| Restart Engine |
Stops and restarts the helper process that runs Beancount. Try it first if the app seems stuck. |
| Show Engine Log |
Shows what the engine printed, including the output and errors of your own plugins. The text can be selected and copied. |
These are not in Settings; the app simply remembers them:
| Per ledger |
For the app |
| Period, filters, columns, conversion and chart of each report |
The last ledger (reopened at launch) and the ten most recent |
| Portfolio grouping, Cash and chart |
Window size and position |
| Journal types, View options and order |
|
| Saved views |
|
| The last file open in the editor |
|
| Which iPhone drafts were already imported |
|
All of it lives in the app’s own storage on your Mac (its sandbox container). Nothing is written to your ledger files.
