General settings

Open settings from the gear at the bottom of the sidebar, and use the search box at the top to filter them. The General settings cover the app version and logs, your account, appearance, notifications, conda environments, notebooks, privacy, and keyboard shortcuts.

About

The About section shows the app's version and manages updates:

  • Version — the build you're running, marked Beta, with its update status. When a newer build has downloaded it reads Version X is ready to install; otherwise use Check for updates to look for one.
  • Support — information to include when you contact support:
    • Application logs — shows the path to the app's log file. Select Show in Finder (macOS), Show in File Explorer (Windows), or Show in File Manager (Linux) to find it.
    • Kilo config — shows the path to your global Kilo config file (for example ~/.config/kilo/kilo.json), with the same button. If you haven't created one, it reads No global config file has been created yet.

When an update is ready, select Restart to update to relaunch and apply it. When release notes are available, the About section also shows a What's changed section for the update.

Account

The Account section manages your Kilo account. When you're signed in, it shows your account email, your Available balance (with a refresh), an Organization selector, and Top up and Kilo Dashboard links. See Usage & Billing for how organizations and balances work.

Appearance

The Appearance section controls how the app looks:

  • Theme — switch between Light, Dark, or System. Kilo Desktop starts in Dark until you choose a theme.
  • Color theme — choose the app's color theme from the dropdown, such as Kilo.
  • Accent color — use the theme's accent (the Theme option) or pick your own from the color swatches.
  • Sidebar vibrancy — toggle a translucent sidebar background on or off.
  • Interface text size — adjust the text size in the sidebar, menus, and settings.
  • Chat text size — adjust the text size of chat messages, the input, and tool output.

Notifications

The Notifications section controls when Kilo plays a sound to get your attention. While Kilo is in the background, it also shows a system notification. Set each of these:

  • When Kilo finishes — Kilo completed its turn.
  • When Kilo needs you — an approval, a question, or an error.

For each, choose Never, When I'm not looking (skips the session you have open), or Always. Select the speaker button to preview the sound. To silence the system notifications entirely, use your operating system's notification settings.

Conda Environments

Create and manage conda environments and their packages. See Conda environments for what you can do here. Requires a Kilo account.

Notebooks

The Notebooks section has two settings:

  • Automatically create environment.yml — give new notebooks a shared conda environment in their workspace.
  • Trust new notebooks — skip the dependency approval prompt for new notebooks.

See Notebooks for working with notebooks in a chat. Requires a Kilo account; if you're signed out, the section shows a Sign in to Kilo prompt, the same as Conda Environments.

Privacy

The Privacy section has a single Share usage analytics and crash reports toggle. When on, it shares usage analytics and crash reports with Kilo — including from the embedded Kilo service and conda environment manager.

It also explains data handling for free models: because they may route your requests to providers that log prompts and outputs, don't submit personal or confidential data when using them. See Using Kilo for Free for details, and use the chat model picker's filter to exclude free models.

Shortcuts

The Shortcuts section lets you see, change, or turn off the app's keyboard shortcuts.

  • App Navigation — numbered shortcuts for jumping to tabs (⌘1–9 / Ctrl+1–9) and sessions (⌃1–9 / Alt+1–9). Turn either set off, or choose which modifier key it uses.
  • All shortcuts — select a shortcut and press the new keys to change it (Esc cancels). Hover a shortcut and select × to turn it off. A new shortcut must include ⌘, ⌃, or ⌥ (Ctrl or Alt on Windows/Linux). Kilo tells you if a shortcut is reserved by the system or already used by another action.
  • Reset all restores every default.

Press ⌘/ (macOS) or Ctrl+/ (Windows/Linux) anywhere to open the searchable Keyboard shortcuts reference.