Settings¶

Dangerzone stores its settings in a JSON file named settings.json. The graphical application writes it whenever you change a setting, and reads it on start. Missing keys are filled with their defaults, so you can delete the file to reset everything.

Location¶

Platform	Path
Linux	`~/.config/dangerzone/settings.json`
macOS	`~/Library/Application Support/dangerzone/settings.json`
Windows	`%LOCALAPPDATA%\dangerzone\dangerzone\settings.json`

The directory is the per-user configuration directory returned by platformdirs for the dangerzone application.

Keys¶

Conversion¶

save: Boolean. Default true. Only used by the GUI. Whether to save the safe PDF to disk. When set to false, the safe PDF will be output in a temporary directory instead.
archive: Boolean. Default true. Only used by the GUI. Move the original document into an unsafe/ subdirectory after a successful conversion. Corresponds to the "Move original documents to 'unsafe' subdirectory" choice in the GUI.
safe_extension: String. Default "-safe.pdf". Suffix appended to the original name to form the output name. Must end with .pdf. Ignored if save is false.
output_dir: String or null. Default null. Directory where safe PDFs are saved when "Save safe PDFs to" is selected. null means next to the original.
ocr: Boolean. Default true. Only used by the GUI. Run OCR on the safe PDF.
ocr_language: String. Default "English". Display name of the OCR language, as listed in share/ocr-languages.json.
open: Boolean. Default true. Open the safe PDF after conversion (only used by the GUI).
open_app: String or null. Default null. On Linux, the desktop application used to open the safe PDF. null means the default PDF viewer (only used by the GUI).

Container runtime¶

container_runtime: String, absent by default. Full path of the container runtime to use instead of the platform default. Set with dangerzone-cli --set-container-runtime and removed with --set-container-runtime default. See Use Podman Desktop or a custom runtime.
stop_other_podman_machines: String. Default "ask". What to do on macOS and Windows when another Podman machine is already running, since only one can run at a time. "ask" prompts, "always" stops the other machine, "never" makes Dangerzone quit instead. The prompt's "Remember my choice" checkbox sets this to "always" or "never".

Updates¶

updater_check_all: Boolean or null. Default null. Whether to check for container updates and new releases. null means the user has not been asked yet. Replaces the older updater_check key.
updater_ask_before_download: Boolean. Default true. Ask before downloading a new sandbox image when one is available. The "Always download sandbox updates" checkbox in that prompt sets it to false.
updater_last_check: Integer or null. Default null. Last update check, in seconds since the Unix epoch. null means Dangerzone has never checked. Checks are spaced at least 12 hours apart.
updater_latest_version: String. Default: the running version. Latest release version that the updater has seen.
updater_latest_changelog: String. Default "". Changelog of the latest release seen, rendered in the "New version available" dialog.
updater_remote_log_index: Integer. Default 0. Rekor transparency log index of the latest sandbox image seen in the registry. Used to detect that a newer image exists.
updater_errors: Integer. Default 0. Number of consecutive update check errors. Reset to 0 on the next successful check.

See Update notifications for how these keys drive the update flow.

Next to the settings, Dangerzone keeps the sandbox image signatures under the per-user data directory (~/.local/share/dangerzone/signatures on Linux, ~/Library/Application Support/dangerzone/signatures on macOS, %LOCALAPPDATA%\dangerzone\dangerzone\signatures on Windows), including the last_log_index file that dangerzone-image load-archive checks before installing an archive.