Sync modes

What Settings Saver does at launch and while you play in each sync mode (Off, Auto, Auto + always apply), and what the one-time apply is.

Sync is opt-in and set per instance. The mode decides what Settings Saver does on its own; the Save and Load buttons work the same in every mode.

The three modes#

Change the mode with the Sync button in the Settings Saver menu: each click moves to the next mode, and hovering it explains the current one. The mode is stored as sync= in the instance's config file. The change takes effect at once:

• Off to Auto starts saving the changes you make from now on. Settings you changed before are not saved: press Save settings to profile first if you want them in the profile.
• Auto to Off stops saving at once.
• Changing the mode never applies the profile.

The one-time apply#

A new instance has no options.txt until the game writes one. On that first launch Settings Saver converts the instance's profile to this Minecraft version's format and writes it as the instance's options.txt before the game reads it. The game then starts with your settings, language and keybinds already in place.

With sync Off, this happens once per instance. The instance's config then records appliedOnce=true, and later launches leave the instance alone even if you delete its options.txt. The one-time apply is used up on the first launch with Settings Saver, even when nothing was applied:

• The instance already had an options.txt (an existing instance you just added the mod to). It is never overwritten without your say: press Load when you want the profile.
• The profile was empty. The default profile stays empty until you press Save once (or turn on Auto and change a setting). Instances never fill a profile on their own.

In the Auto modes there is no one-time limit: whenever an instance starts without an options.txt, it is filled in from the profile.

Auto: saving changes as you play#

Minecraft rewrites options.txt whenever it saves an option you changed. In the Auto modes a background thread checks the file every 2 seconds. Once the file has changed and then stayed the same for one more check, Settings Saver compares it with the state it last synced and saves only the settings you changed into the profile. A final check runs when the game closes.

Because only changes are saved, an instance never undoes something you changed in another instance, and an older version never replaces a setting it doesn't fully understand. See Converting between versions and Running several instances at once.

Settings that the profile doesn't have yet but the game wrote anyway (for example options added by a newer Minecraft version) are added to the profile. They never replace a value the profile already has.

Excluded settings are never saved.

Auto + always apply#

This mode makes the instance follow the profile at every launch, which helps when you change settings in one instance and want the others to pick them up next time they start:

1. The instance's options.txt is copied to the backups.
2. The profile's settings are written over the instance's, in this version's format. Excluded settings, and settings the profile doesn't have, keep the instance's values.
3. While you play, changes are saved as in Auto.

When nothing is applied#

Settings Saver applies a profile only when it knows the running Minecraft version, because it must convert to that version's format. If it can't detect the version, it writes nothing and logs Minecraft version unknown, can't convert saved settings; not applying them. Auto still saves changes from 1.10 and newer, whose options.txt names its own version.