Settings & keep-time

The Settings sidebar has sections for Interface, Services, Quiet Hours, Rules, Notifications, License, Junk Yard, Shortcuts, Permissions, Connections, Advanced, and Consent & Legal — each controls one area of the app.

No. Storage Studio saves each change as you make it — there's no Apply button and nothing to restart. Background work picks up the new value within about 30 seconds.

Quit and Restart both stop work at a safe point and close the app's own helpers. An update being installed and the scheduled background service are deliberately left running.

The note under the switch explains why: Apple Intelligence is off in System Settings, macOS is still downloading its model, or this Mac can't run it. Storage Studio uses built-in suggestions meanwhile.

The change applies the next time you click the menu bar icon. Close the current window, click the icon again, and the view you chose in Settings → Interface opens.

Settings → Services is a live health check: one row per background part of the app, each with a coloured dot and a plain-English status. It refreshes every 5 seconds while open.

Green means running normally, yellow means waiting or paused and expected to recover by itself, and red means stopped or needs your attention — the row's detail line says what to do.

The Services page refreshes itself every 5 seconds while open; the stamp at the top shows when. Click the refresh button beside it to re-check immediately.

Click Restart now on the Background service row — red means it's stopped or not installed, and the button repairs it in place. If it won't stay green, re-run the Setup Wizard from the More menu.

It's a built-in watchdog that checks Storage Studio's own background parts and silently repairs them — every 5 minutes while you use the app, every 30 minutes while it's hidden, and on wake.

Repairs that need nothing from you are silent by design. The Self-healing monitor row in Settings → Services shows the latest check and how many items it repaired.

It's the once-a-day record of drive usage that feeds the charts — not a backup. Green means one was taken in the last 36 hours; yellow means they've paused and self-healing is checking.

Waiting for drive means your set-up drive isn't connected — plug it in and queued work resumes. Drive needs verification means it's connected but must be confirmed from Inspect.

It shows the background duplicate search: Scanning now, a count of sets you can clean up, Standing by before the first scan, or Off if you've turned background scanning off.

No external drive is available, so removed files are being held on your internal disk. Connect your drive and they move there automatically, staying recoverable for about 6 months.

Every 24 hours. The Software updates row in Settings → Services shows the result; click Check Now on the Updates card in Settings → License to check immediately.

Every 12 hours, and only two totals: bytes saved and bytes moved. While the row says Waiting for activation, nothing is collected or sent.

Not activated means there's no active trial or licence on this Mac, so automatic work waits. Activate in Settings → License. Items already moved keep working either way.

You haven't added a cloud account yet. The rest of the app works without one; you only need an account to run cloud transfers. The row turns green once one is connected.

Idle means ready; Running shows active transfers; Waiting for drive needs your external drive plugged in; queued may be waiting on sign-in or network; failed earlier means open Data Transfers to review.

Every 10 minutes, and straight away when your external drive reconnects. If the app is open at the time, it waits until you quit it before moving the new copy.

Yes — without Full Disk Access, Storage Studio can't read some protected folders, so moves and space scans are incomplete. Grant it in System Settings, then click Re-check.

It shows the Free Up Space engine's state: Running now, Idle with roughly how much the last run freed, or Ready to run until you press the button or the daily schedule starts it.

It shows the mover behind the Data Parking window: Moving files while a move is in progress, or Idle when it's ready. Individual moves are listed in the window's Moves panel.

The background service is installed but hasn't reported in recently. Click Restart now on the row; the self-healing monitor will also try to fix it automatically on its next check.

Quiet Hours control when Storage Studio may run heavy automatic work like scheduled moves and cache clean-up. Choose Scheduled, Smart (recommended) or Always on in Settings → Quiet Hours.

Smart mode holds off automatic work while you're active (input in the last 5 minutes by default), on battery below 30% by default, or in a meeting (camera or mic in use). Each signal is adjustable.

Pick Scheduled in Settings → Quiet Hours and type 24-hour ranges in Quiet during, such as 9-19, or several separated by commas like 9-12,14-18. The window applies every day.

Outside your scheduled window, Storage Studio still waits until you haven't used the keyboard or mouse for this many seconds before starting heavy work. The default is 600 seconds (10 minutes).

It only checks whether your camera or microphone is in use by any app and waits while it is. Nothing is recorded, stored or sent. Toggle it under Smart-mode signals in Settings → Quiet Hours.

Choose Smart in Settings → Quiet Hours and set Pause when battery drops below (30% by default). It only applies on battery power — when plugged in the percentage is ignored.

In Smart mode, edit User active if input within last … minutes in Settings → Quiet Hours. Automatic work waits until you've been away that long — 5 minutes by default.

Use Always on only if you don't mind automatic work running at any time, even while you work. Smart mode does the same work but waits for a quiet moment, so it suits most people better.

Click Revert to saved at the bottom of Settings → Quiet Hours to reload the last saved values. Changes save automatically, so if one has already saved, set it back by hand.

No — Quiet Hours only hold back automatic work. Actions you start yourself run straight away. Pause is different: it also disables manual actions until you click Resume.

Click Stop Service in the popover (or stop it in Settings → Services). Quitting the app alone isn't enough, because the background service keeps running by design. Start Service turns it back on.

Something held it back: automatic actions paused, the background service stopped, Quiet Hours or battery rules, the external drive disconnected, or no active licence. Settings → Services shows which.

Only while the Storage Studio app is running in your menu bar — it's the app that notices your camera or microphone is in use. If you quit it, the background service can't see meetings.

It shows whether quiet hours are holding automatic work back right now: your scheduled window with "active now", "Smart • OK to run" or "Smart • active —" plus a reason, or "Always on • never quiet".

In Smart mode only, it combines your battery level, whether you're on mains power, and whether a meeting is detected — the signals that decide if automatic work may run.

Enabled means automatic actions run when allowed, Paused means you paused them (click Resume), and Disabled (monitor only) means Storage Studio only watches and reports.

The hard floor stops Storage Studio automatically moving or deleting anything modified within the last 7 days (by default), whatever a rule says. Change it under Global overrides in Settings → Rules.

They raise the minimum age for all move rules or all delete rules at once. A floor can only make rules more cautious, never less; set it to 0 to use each rule's own age.

Blue labels are move rules, red are delete rules and purple are app-cache clean-up. They appear on each rule's row in Settings → Rules.

No — move rules keep any file you've opened recently, even an old one, using macOS's own record of file use. Anything that is moved leaves a shortcut so it still opens in place.

It lists Free Up Space's steps: moving rule-matched folders and cleaning app caches are always on; making downloaded cloud files online-only is off by default and switched on per provider.

Storage Studio adds Auto Rules as it learns what's safe to clean on your Mac, so it starts empty. Click Review… beside Auto Rules to scan now and see suggestions.

The app asks you to confirm, because files edited this week could then be moved or deleted. A warning stays on the Rules page; set it back to 7 days to restore normal protection.

It raises every rule whose age is below the hard floor to match it. Those rules already run at the floor; the button makes the stored ages match what actually happens.

Informational notices arrive quietly without a banner, warnings show a banner, and important ones can break through Focus. A quiet entry is working as designed.

By default it warns (orange icon) when free space on your built-in drive drops below 40 GB, and at critically low (red, below 15 GB) it notifies you and steps in automatically.

Switch off notifications for Storage Studio in macOS System Settings → Notifications. Notices still collect in the app's own notification bell, so nothing important is lost.

Defaults: ⌃Space opens the Apps grid, ⌃⇧J opens the Junk Yard, ⌃⇧C saves the clipboard to Junk, ⌃⇧N makes a new note and ⌃⇧D moves the curtain. Change them in Settings → Shortcuts.

Open Settings → Shortcuts, use each action's switch to turn it on or off, and pick a different combination from its menu. A combination in use elsewhere is hidden from the other menus.

macOS or another app probably already uses that combination — ⌃Space is often the input-source switch. Pick a different one in Settings → Shortcuts and check the action is switched on.

No. Popover shortcuts like ⌘R (refresh) and ⌘L (Log) are handy, but Eject and Rollback always keep their confirmation step — no shortcut bypasses it.

Another Storage Studio action is already using that combination, and each one can belong to only one action. Change or switch off the action holding it in Settings → Shortcuts to free it up.

Recycle Vault items are kept about 6 months, Junk Yard scraps for the time you pick (1 day by default), self-backups for 7 days, storage history for about a year, and support log bundles up to 6 months.

In the Recycle Vault's settings you can set how much it may hold on your Mac while the drive is away (5 GB default), versions kept per file (5 default) and its share of the external drive (20% default).

It stops removed files waiting for your external drive from filling your internal disk. If the limit is reached with no drive connected, new removals pause until you reconnect the drive.

It caps how many removed versions of the same file the vault keeps — 5 by default. Going over the cap clears only that file's oldest version, never unrelated files.

It backs up its own settings and records to your external drive once a day and keeps the last 7 days. They hold only the app's records, never your files.

About a year. A daily record of drive usage is kept for roughly 365 days to feed the charts, and older days are dropped automatically.

Up to 6 months. After an upload you see the date it's retained until; it's used only for your issue and deleted on request. The local copy is cleared once the upload succeeds.

Use Enable Junk Yard on this Mac at the top of Settings → Junk Yard. When it's off, the board, its shortcuts and the edge curtain all stay out of the way.

It's a daily copy of Storage Studio's own settings and records on your external drive — never your files. Settings → Advanced → Self-backup lists them, with Backup now and Restore buttons.

Advanced holds launch at login, the Apps grid shortcut, Junk Yard curtain tuning, Full Disk Access, cleanup-rule options, Demo Mode, Self-backup and version details.

Yes, though it's optional — Settings → Advanced has Reveal config file in Finder and Open in default editor. Changes are picked up in about 30 seconds; edit carefully.

Demo Mode makes Storage Studio safe to record: nothing is really moved or removed, and stand-in names and figures replace your real ones. Turn it on or off in Settings → Advanced.

It lets Storage Studio find the caches your installed apps create and keep them tidy automatically, while only ever clearing safe, regenerable cache folders. It's under Cleanup rules in Settings → Advanced.

Raise Open delay under Junk Yard Edge Curtain in Settings → Advanced (100 ms by default) so the pointer must rest longer at the edge. Or switch the edge curtain off in Settings → Junk Yard.

Yes — in Settings → Advanced → Junk Yard Edge Curtain, drag Panel background for more or less see-through, and set each of the three Scroll speed sliders up to 5×. Reset to defaults restores them.

Self-backups live on your external drive, so they can only be listed or made while it's connected. Plug the drive in and click Refresh in Settings → Advanced → Self-backup.

No — updating keeps your existing settings and rules; an update never replaces them with defaults. A daily self-backup on your external drive is there as a fallback.

Not if your external drive holds a self-backup. Click Backup now before erasing, then after reinstalling open Settings → Advanced → Self-backup and Restore the latest copy.

A leftover start-up entry from an earlier version can stop encrypted external drives mounting after a restart. If found, Settings → Advanced shows an auto-mount notice with a button to remove it.

Run the check in the Demo Mode group of Settings → Advanced. It searches what Demo Mode shows for your own name, folders, drives, email and Mac details, and changes nothing.

It lists the macOS permissions Storage Studio uses — Full Disk Access and Notifications — with why each is needed, whether it's granted, an Open Settings button and a Re-check button.

It stops all background activity and returns Storage Studio to the acceptance screen. Nothing is deleted or uninstalled. Do it in Settings → Consent & Legal and confirm with Withdraw & stop.

Job Insights (More → Job Insights…) is a plain-English screen with one card per kind of background work, showing what it does, when it last ran, its status and any issues.

Healthy means running fine, Working… means busy now, Ready means idle until its next run, and Needs attention means something went wrong — expand the card to read the issue.

To avoid flooding you: quiet monitors refresh their last-ran time without adding to the count, and repeated hiccups with the same thing are grouped into one notice rather than one per file.

It's a unique identifier for your install, shown with a Copy button in Settings → Notifications, alongside a PIN. Support needs both before they can enable log uploads from your Mac.

The PIN is the second half of the pair that lets diagnostic logs be sent from your install. Click Rotate in Settings → Notifications to revoke that ability at any time.

It records detailed diagnostics locally after support enables it; nothing is sent until you click Push debug logs and agree. The bundle holds logs and system details, not file contents, and is kept up to 6 months.

Click Switch OFF in Settings → Notifications. Capturing stops and your PIN is rotated, so logs can no longer be pushed from your install with the old details.

That the bundle holds logs and system details but not file contents and is kept up to 6 months; that you may send logs from this Mac; and that you'll keep the Log ID private. Then click Agree & push.

It lets AI assistants on this Mac read your storage status from Storage Studio. It's read-only, off until you turn on Allow local assistant access, and never reachable from outside this Mac.