Visual Studio Code on Mac

Question

I installed Visual Studio Code on Mac/OSX (drop app in Applications) - uninstalled (moved the App to the Trash) - installed again

Since the second time I installed I didn't get the same start screen as during my first install I suppose somewhere in my file system Visual Studio Code writes something? I would like to know where (besides in the Application folder) Visual Studio Code writes files?

Answer 1

VSCode uses another folder to store settings, including a flag to indicate if welcome should show or not. The folder is:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Code
• Mac: $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code
• Linux: $HOME/.config/Code

Answer 2

I've looked on my wife's mac and can't find a trace of these settings, they're not in any standard folder ($HOME, /Libraries/Preferences, /System/Libraries/Preferences nor /Libraries/Containers).

But to open the original start screen, you can use Help -> Show Welcome.

The settings are stored though, if you run "defaults read" you will see a number of settings related to vscode mentioned, including the files you had open last time you closed. Since Visual Studio Code uses the GitHub Atom Shell under the hood, you need to read the settings for atom using

 defaults find atom

which will show you some data stored for the app.