Settings

Open settings with Ctrl+, or the gear icon. Settings, Help, and History overlay the terminal area only — workspace and stream tabs stay visible. Click any of those tabs (or press Escape) to go back to the streams; you do not have to use Back to Streams.

General

Setting	Description
Start with Windows	Launch StreamView automatically on login
Restore on launch	Restore workspaces and stream layout from the last session
Auto-start on restore	Automatically start terminal processes when restoring (off = restore the layout only, then start each stream manually)
Default shell	Shell used for new terminals when no profile is selected
Buffer size	Scrollback line count (5,000–50,000)
Auto-check updates	Check for new versions on startup
Confirm before closing	Ask before closing StreamView while streams are running, with the option to save Claude context first (on by default; see Claude Code)

Appearance

Setting	Description
Theme	Dark, Light, or High Contrast. Switching re-colours open panes immediately, including scrollback already on screen.
Auto theme	Manual, Follow System, Time Window, or Sunrise/Sunset
Terminal font	JetBrains Mono, Cascadia Code, Consolas, or Fira Code
Font size	Terminal font size (12–18px)
UI scale	Scale all interface elements (80%–150%). First launch on a wide display (≥3000px) starts at 130%; high-DPI laptops start at 120%. The status-bar slider changes it live; click the left half of the percent to step down 10%, the right half to step up.
Default layout	Grid, Main+Sidebar, Rows, or Single
Show pane borders	Thin border around each pane
Status color bar	Colored left border on panes

History

Setting	Description
Auto-save sessions	Record terminal output for later review
Retention period	How long to keep session logs (7 days, 30 days, 90 days, or Forever)

Environment

Settings → Environment is a library of named dotenv packs, encrypted at %LOCALAPPDATA%\StreamView\env-packs\. A stream attaches a pack in its editor — the streams that attach my-api get it, other panes do not. Restart the pane, not StreamView.

Import from User environment copies extra User-scope variables (for example API_BASE_URL) into the selected pack. An agent can hand values over by writing %LOCALAPPDATA%\StreamView\env-incoming\my-api.env. See Environment variables and secrets.

Data

The data directory (Settings > Data > Data Directory) controls where portable data is stored. StreamView itself has no cloud features; syncing is whatever that folder does. For exact paths see the FAQ and Session history.

Session Checkpoints (Settings > Data > Session Checkpoints) can ask idle Claude panes for a LEFT-OFF resume note. Off on a fresh install. When on, the default is daily, and only if that pane did work since yesterday. A pane waiting on you with no new work is skipped. Save & Close still writes a summary when you leave. You can switch to every 2 hours / hour / 30 minutes on the same page.

History has its own location (Settings > Data > History Location), and separating the two is usually what you want. Configuration is a few KB that changes rarely and is worth syncing between machines; history is hundreds of megabytes that grows every few seconds. Putting both in OneDrive to get the first means every history write triggers a sync, which triggers an antivirus or indexer scan — the "fan is loud but StreamView's CPU is low" problem. Point the data directory at cloud storage and the history folder at a local disk to get synced config without the churn. Changing the history location does not move existing history; copy it across yourself if you want to keep it.

Backup & transfer

Settings > Data > Backup & Transfer moves a whole StreamView setup to another machine as one file.

• Export configuration writes your stream templates, workspace layouts, and settings to a .svconfig.json. It excludes session history, screenshots, and folder locations. Environment-variable values ride along as DPAPI ciphertext — readable again only on this Windows user, not on the machine you import into. See Environment variables and secrets.
• Import configuration shows you what it will do before writing anything, then lets you merge (matched by name, so re-importing updates rather than duplicates) or replace.

Import checks paths, because a config from another machine is full of absolute ones. Anything under a different user folder is rewritten to yours — C:\Users\alice\repos becomes C:\Users\you\repos — and anything that still doesn't exist is listed as a warning. A stream with a missing working directory imports fine and fails when you press play, so it's worth reading that list.

Programs referenced by full path (C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe) are checked too. Programs referenced by name (powershell.exe, claude) aren't, since those resolve via PATH at launch.

Performance

Settings > Data > Performance deals with a specific symptom: the fan spins up while StreamView is open, but StreamView's own CPU is low. The usual cause is Windows Defender and Windows Search scanning every file StreamView writes (session history is appended continuously; screenshots are large).

Setting	Description
Optimize antivirus scanning	Adds StreamView's own folders to Windows Defender's exclusion list. Windows asks for admin approval (UAC).
Undo antivirus exclusions	Removes those exclusions and restores real-time scanning. Appears once exclusions are applied.
Windows Search indexing	Opens Control Panel > Indexing Options so you can untick the same folders. StreamView never changes indexing settings for you.

Only StreamView's own folders are excluded — the data directory, %LOCALAPPDATA%\StreamView, and a custom screenshots folder if you've set one. Never your drive, your projects, or any executable. The exact list is shown on the button's description before you apply it.

Standalone builds also exclude the folder the app runs from. Microsoft Store builds do not: they install into a protected system folder whose name changes with every update, so excluding it would strand a dead entry each time StreamView updates. The folders that actually see continuous writes are the data and state folders above, and those are excluded either way.

Trade-off: files in those folders are no longer scanned in real time. StreamView writes only its own session data there.

A one-time banner offers the same fix on startup; Don't ask again silences it permanently, and applying the exclusions dismisses it for good.

If your data directory lives inside OneDrive, StreamView also flags that: each history write triggers a sync, which triggers another scan. Moving the data directory to a local folder is the bigger win.

If the exclusion fails, a policy probably manages antivirus on the machine (common on work laptops) or a third-party AV has replaced Defender — add the folders manually in Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Exclusions.

Related

• Session persistence
• Recording modes
• Keyboard shortcuts