# Profiles (/features/profiles)



A profile is a **whole set of automations**: its own shortcuts, leader menus,
snippets, Hyper key, double-tap and Fn rows, alert style and flows. Switching
profile swaps all of it at once.

It is not a filter and it is not a tag. The other profile's rows are not hidden
from the list — they are not loaded, not registered, and cannot fire.

## What is shared, and what is not [#what-is-shared-and-what-is-not]

One profile is live at a time, and everything below the line stays the same
whichever one that is.

| Per profile                       | Shared by every profile                     |
| --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| Shortcuts and leader menus        | Your licence                                |
| Snippets and the suggestion panel | Expansion history                           |
| Hyper key, double-tap, Fn key     | Appearance, Launch at login                 |
| Alert style, window arranging     | Telemetry choice                            |
| Flows                             | Lumi's own shortcut for the Settings window |

Two of those are worth saying out loud.

**Your licence is not per profile.** One key activates this Mac, not a
workspace, so making a second profile does not cost a second seat and switching
does not re-check anything.

**Lumi's own shortcut is shared**, so the combination that opens Settings works
in every profile and a fresh profile never leaves you with no way back into the
app. The cost is the other side of the same coin: a combination reserved for
Lumi is reserved everywhere, and no profile can reuse it.

## Switching [#switching]

Four ways, and all four need [Pro](/pro) — see **On a free copy** below.

* **The menu bar** — the tray's **Profile** submenu, with a tick beside the live
  one and **Manage Profiles…** under a rule at the bottom. Always reachable,
  since Lumi has no Dock icon.
* **A shortcut** — the **Switch profile** action, which works from the Shortcuts
  pane and from inside a leader menu like any other action.
* **Next profile and Previous profile** — two combinations in
  **General → App shortcuts**, which walk the list instead of naming a
  destination. Unbound until you set them.
* **The window itself** — the name at the top right of the Settings window and
  of the Flow Editor, in the title bar. It opens the same list, with a tick
  beside the live one and **Manage profiles…** at the bottom.

Switching from the Flow Editor while it is holding unsaved work asks first —
Save, Don't save or Cancel — rather than refusing, because that window is the
one that can still do something about it.

A switch to the profile you are already in does nothing, and says nothing.

### On a free copy [#on-a-free-copy]

The free plan runs **one profile**, and that is whichever one is live. Every way
of changing it is refused: the Profiles tab's buttons, the switcher in the title
bar, the tray's Profile submenu, a `Switch profile` shortcut, a leader step, and
**Next profile** / **Previous profile**.

The controls are drawn greyed rather than left to fail, so it is visible before
you press anything, and each locked profile carries a **padlock** — hover it for
the reason. The shortcuts say so out loud when pressed, and the rows in the
Shortcuts pane and in **General → App shortcuts** carry the same sentence for
whoever comes looking afterwards.

**Nothing is deleted, hidden or rewritten.** Every profile keeps every shortcut,
snippet, menu and flow, and subscribing again restores all of it with no repair.

One thing to know before a subscription ends: **you stay in whichever profile
was live at that moment.** If that is not the one you want, there is no way to
change it from inside Lumi until Pro comes back.

### Next and Previous [#next-and-previous]

The **Switch profile** action names one profile, so it lives in the Shortcuts
pane and belongs to whichever profile you wrote it in. That is worth knowing
before you build a switcher out of it: a key that takes you from Work to
Personal does not exist once you are in Personal, so it works in one direction
and is dead in the other.

**Next profile** and **Previous profile** avoid that by naming no profile at
all. They sit with Lumi's own commands in **General → App shortcuts**, which
belong to the Mac rather than to a profile — so they are the same two
combinations wherever you are, and between them they reach everything.

Three things about how they walk:

* **The order is the order you made them in**, which is the order the Profiles
  tab draws them. Nothing sorts them and there is no way to rearrange them.
* **They wrap.** Next from the last profile arrives at the first, and Previous
  from the first arrives at the last. With exactly two profiles this makes the
  two keys do the same thing, which is what a cycle of two means.
* **With one profile they say so** rather than doing nothing quietly, and the
  row in **General → App shortcuts** says the same thing until a second profile
  exists. The free plan runs one profile, so that is the ordinary state of a
  free copy.
* **Without Pro they say that instead.** Both are refused on a free copy however
  many profiles it holds, along with every other way to switch — see **On a free
  copy** above.

### Seeing which one is live [#seeing-which-one-is-live]

Two places say so without being asked.

**The window's title bar**, top right, in both Settings and the Flow Editor.
It is always there, whether you have one profile or ten — the list it opens is
also where profiles are made, so it is worth finding before you have a second
one.

**The menu bar**, beside Lumi's icon, so the answer is in view with no window
open at all. Two things about that one are worth knowing:

* **Nothing is drawn until you have more than one profile.** A name answers
  *which of several*, and with one there is nothing to ask — so a copy with a
  single profile sees the icon alone, and the name appears by itself the moment
  a second profile exists.
* **A long name is shortened.** The menu bar is shared with every other app's
  icons, and on a Mac with a notch a wide item pushes its neighbours out of
  reach, so anything past twenty-four characters ends in an ellipsis.

The switch is in **General → Profiles**, under the description. It belongs to
the Mac rather than to a profile, like the theme — otherwise the name would
appear and vanish as you switched.

### What a switch stops [#what-a-switch-stops]

Everything the profile you are leaving had claimed is handed back, and two
things are actively closed:

* **A leader menu that is open closes.** Its steps belong to the document being
  replaced, and a cheatsheet listing keys that no longer do anything is worse
  than no cheatsheet.
* **Flows that are running are asked to stop.** Each gives up at its next step,
  so nothing is interrupted half-way. Lumi says how many there were.

Two things make Lumi **decline** a switch rather than do it, and both name what
to finish first: a shortcut recording in progress, and the Flow Editor holding
unsaved work.

## Making one [#making-one]

**General → Profiles**, which the tray's **Manage Profiles…** opens too.

* **Create new profile** asks for a name, and makes an empty one: no
  shortcuts, no snippets, no flows.
* **Duplicate** is the middle button on a row, and copies *that* profile —
  every shortcut, snippet and flow — under a new name. It need not be the live
  one. The two are separate documents from that moment on.
* A **name** is a label — press the pencil on its row to change it. Renaming
  moves nothing on disk and breaks no shortcut that points at it.
* **Remove** asks on the row first, and **leaves its files alone.** Nothing you
  wrote is deleted — the profile leaves the list and its folder stays where it
  is. The live profile and the last remaining one cannot be removed.

Profiles are a [Pro](/pro) feature: the free plan runs one.

## Where it all lives [#where-it-all-lives]

Each profile is a folder of its own beside the shared files, under
`~/Library/Application Support/dev.thiennguyen.lumi/`:

```
profiles.json          which profile is live
globals.json           the settings shared by all of them
license.json           your licence
history.json           expansion history
profiles/
  default/
    config.json        that profile's shortcuts, snippets and settings
    flows/             that profile's flows
  p_…/
    config.json
    flows/
```

A profile folder is an ordinary folder: copy one to another Mac, back one up,
or hand one to somebody, and it is a complete set of automations.

## Upgrading, and going back [#upgrading-and-going-back]

**Upgrading** moves your existing `config.json` and `flows/` into
`profiles/default/` the first time Lumi runs, and keeps a copy of the old file
beside them named `config.json.pre-profiles-…`. Nothing changes on screen: same
shortcuts, same snippets, no onboarding tour. Your licence, history and
telemetry choice are untouched, because none of them moved.

**Going back to a version of Lumi from before profiles** is survivable but not
seamless. That build looks for `config.json` where it used to be, does not find
it, and opens as though it were newly installed — the onboarding tour, and none
of your shortcuts. **Nothing is lost:** your settings are in
`profiles/default/`, your licence and history are where they always were, and
upgrading again brings everything back exactly as it was.

If you go back, work on the old build for a while, and then upgrade, Lumi
notices the `config.json` that build left behind and offers to **adopt** it as a
profile — in **General → Advanced**. That offer is not gated on Pro: it is your
own work being recovered, not a new workspace.