Settings opens from the Settings button (the sliders icon) in the quick controls at the end of the bottom bar, in the editor and in the Explorer. It holds the preferences that are about you rather than about any particular document, which is why there is one set of them and not one per document.
The dialog lists its categories down the left, with a Search settings field above them, and shows one category at a time on the right. Type into the search to find a setting by name or by a word it is about ("transparency" finds Panel Opacity). On a phone, the list and the category take turns: tap a category to open it, and go back for the list.
Some categories hold sub-categories (Editor holds Draw and Illustrate; Panels holds one per panel; Account holds Notifications and API Tokens). On a computer, click the parent (or its arrow) to show them beneath it, and again to fold them away. On a phone, tap the parent and its sub-categories are listed at the bottom of its page.
Each category groups its settings into cards, one card per section, with a short line under each setting saying what it does. A setting that only matters while another is on (a panel's own options under its switch) sits indented beneath it, and shows only while that switch is on.
Editor
Under Canvas:
- Alignment Guides: snap lines while you move or resize, so elements line up with their neighbours. On by default. See Alignment Guides.
- Auto-Attach Arrows: when a move leaves an arrow running through a shape it connects, its end moves to the side facing the other end. On by default. See Auto-Attach Arrows.
- Element Indicators: how an element shows that it has a link, a note, an action or comments. Top (the default) puts small icons near its top, Footer puts a labelled row along its bottom edge, and Off hides them. See Element Indicators.
Under Mouse:
- Quick-Add on Hover: opens an element's quick-add + menu when you hover it, instead of waiting for a click; the + buttons still only appear on the selected element. Off by default. See Quick-Add on Hover.
- Middle-Mouse Pan: hold the middle mouse button and drag to pan from anywhere, whatever tool is active. On by default; turn it off to leave the middle button to your browser.
Then:
- Power User Mode, under Power User: applies a set of recommended settings in one go and unlocks Minimal Chrome, which hides labels and hints while keeping every control. Switching it off puts back the settings you did not change. See Power User Mode.
Draw
- Dock Position: where Draw mode's dock of pens, shapes and tools sits, Top or Bottom (closer to hand when drawing on a tablet). Only Draw mode has a dock, so Diagram mode is unchanged.
Illustrate
- Logo Guides: shows a logo page's construction guides, which the artwork snaps to while they show. On by default; a page you switch them on or off for keeps its own choice.
- Logo Guide Strength, beneath it: how strongly the guides show, Faint, Medium (the default) or Strong.
- Guides Shown, beneath it: one chip per guide, Centre Lines, Diagonals, Safe Area, Circles, Square and Grid, all on by default. Tap a chip to hide or show that guide.
Appearance
- Theme: Light, Dark or System, which follows your device. This is the editor's own chrome, not a diagram's theme, although a tab on the Default theme follows it. The same control sits in the bottom bar. Saved on this device only (see below). See Dark Mode.
- Button Labels: names the buttons in the bottom-right corner (such as Layers, Style and Tidy Up) beside their icons, on a screen wide enough for them. On by default; turn it off for icons alone. A phone always shows icons alone.
- UI Scale: makes the panels, the toolbar and the buttons in the bottom-right corner (zoom, undo and redo, layers) bigger or smaller, from 80% to 120%, with 100% in the middle of the slider. The canvas, dialogs and menus stay as they are, so it is not the same as your browser's zoom. Beneath it, Panel Scale, Toolbar Scale and Corner Buttons Scale size each of those on its own (Toolbar Scale goes up to 140%); moving UI Scale again sets all three back to the same size. The chrome resizes as you drag. Desktop only: a phone always uses 100%.
Keyboard
- Keyboard Shortcuts: the switch that turns the editor's keyboard shortcuts on and off. Off means all of them, chords like undo included, not just the single-letter keys. Saved on this device only (see below).
- All Shortcuts: the full shortcut reference, in collapsible groups. The Keyboard Shortcuts command in search opens Settings straight on this category. See Keyboard Shortcuts.
Panels
- Panel Opacity: fades every panel and the toolbar, from 30% to 100%, so the canvas shows through (buttons and the Explorer stay opaque); a panel snaps back to fully opaque while you hover or focus it. See Panel Opacity.
Panels holds four sub-categories, one per panel. Each starts with a switch that turns its panel on or off; the panel's other settings show beneath it only while it is on.
- Layers: Enable Layers Panel, then Layer Thumbnails, Layer Element Counts and Preview Layer on Hover. Turning the panel off also hides its button and the Move to layer choices in the element menu; your layers keep working as before. See Layers.
- Map: Enable Map (the small overview of the whole tab in the bottom-left corner, once a tab has a few elements), Dim Outside the View, and Map Size (Short, Medium or Tall). Desktop only. See Map.
- Collaborate: Enable Collaborate Panel, the list of a tab's comment threads and actions. It only appears while the tab has a comment or an action. With it off, comments and actions still work from the elements. See Comments.
- Quick Style: Enable Quick Style Panel, the panel of common styles that opens beside a selected shape or arrow. With it off, every style is still in the element's right-click menu. See Quick Style Panel.
Accessibility
- Reduce Motion: turns off the decorative animations and transitions (panels, popovers, the snap guides) so the interface appears instantly instead of sliding. Your device's own reduce-motion setting is always respected; this lets you force it on even where the device doesn't ask for it. See Accessibility.
- UI Scale: Open Appearance takes you to UI Scale, for bigger panels, toolbar and corner buttons.
Tours
One switch per guided tour: Diagram Tour, Plan Tour, Facilitate Tour, Draw Tour and Illustrate Tour. Each tour offers itself once, in its own mode, and its switch turns itself off once you have taken or dismissed it. The Plan and Illustrate tours have a tour for each part (boards and sheets, each kind of page), each offered once, so their switch stays on until you have answered every one. Switch one back on and close Settings to take that tour again: it starts straight away if you are in its mode, or the next time you are. See The Diagram Tour, The Plan Tour, The Facilitate Tour, The Draw Tour and The Illustrate Tour.
Below them, Element Tours is closed until you open it, and says how many are on. Some elements, such as the Sankey Diagram, have a tour of their own, offered from a small Tour toolbar beside the element the first time you select one. Element Tours switches them all; beneath it, one switch per element (Sankey Diagram Tour) offers that one again.
AI Tools
Only present on a deployment with AI configured.
- AI Assistant: shows the AI panel, with its Ask and Clean modes. Off by default. See AI Tools.
- Suggested Prompts, beneath it while it is on: a row of one-click starter prompts under the AI panel's mode buttons. On by default.
- API Tokens: Manage API Tokens jumps to Account › API Tokens, since the AI tools you connect over MCP use a token.
Documents
- Always Save in One Place, under New Documents: saves every new document in one place without the New Document wizard asking where. Its On or Off label says which; you turn it on from the Location step of the wizard, and Turn Off here brings that step back.
- Default Folders: the folder each kind of new document goes to (diagrams, whiteboards, plans and so on) when you create one without choosing a place, with Change and Clear. See Default Folders.
Account
Account shows who you are (a guest, or your name and email when signed in), Show My Profile Picture (signed in only), your Trash (deleted documents wait there for 30 days), Cloud Sync to Google Drive where the deployment offers it, and Delete Account. It holds two sub-categories:
Notifications
- In-Editor Notifications: the brief confirmation shown when you do something whose result isn't on screen, like moving a document to a folder or linking a tab. Errors are always shown, whatever this is set to, so a failure is never silently swallowed.
- Email: once signed in, one switch per email (someone joins, comments on or mentions you in your document, assigns you an action, responds to a team invite, plus tips and milestones). A guest sees a sign-in prompt instead. See Email Notifications.
API Tokens
- Create, view and revoke the tokens your own scripts and connected AI tools use to call livediagram as you. Each expires six months after it is created. A new token's secret is shown once, so copy it before you choose Done. Signed-in only, and absent on a deployment without accounts. See API Tokens.
Anywhere Settings says something needs an account, it ends with a Sign In link that brings you back to where you were.
Privacy
- Send Anonymous Usage Events: the small first-party events listed on the public telemetry dashboard: no user content, no third-party trackers. Turn it off to keep everything you do on your device. See What We Collect.
Settings follow you, most of them
Settings are stored against your identity, not your browser, and apply to every document you open on every device you sign in from. For a guest, "your identity" is the per-browser id, so the preferences last as long as that browser does and migrate with your documents if you later sign up.
A few things deliberately stay on the device you are using:
- Theme (light, dark or system) in Appearance.
- The Keyboard Shortcuts switch, so you can keep shortcuts on where you have a full keyboard and off where you don't.
- Panel positions: which corner each panel docks into.
- Explorer view: List, Card or Details.
- Tool settings: the eraser's brush, the laser's pen, the spotlight, the avatar, Draw mode's pens and the presenter's settings.
The canvas-behaviour toggles (auto-attach arrows, alignment guides, quick-add on hover and panel opacity) used to sit in the palette's own gear menu. They now live here, under Editor and Panels, so every setting has one home.
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