App settings
The Settings window holds what applies to all of Mework rather than to one conversation: appearance, the local model, keyboard shortcuts, usage statistics, command-line tools and updates. Your data lives in a few folders you can back up or remove.
Open Settings
Choose Settings at the bottom of the sidebar, or press ⌘, (Ctrl, on Windows). The Global settings window opens on Model providers (see Models and providers); Search providers is covered in Web search and fetch. Every change takes effect as you make it; only the model editor has a Save button.
Skills, MCP servers, hooks and agent roles have no page here: you choose them per conversation in Conversation settings.
Appearance
Settings → Preferences → Appearance sets how Mework looks and which keys send a message.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | Light, Dark or Follow system. | Follow system |
| Liquid glass | Turns the sidebar and side panes to translucent glass over the window background. | Off |
| Custom background | Choose background… picks a solid colour, a built-in picture, or your own under My pictures. A solid colour follows the theme; a picture stays. | The theme's colour |
| Application language | Automatic gives Simplified Chinese on any Chinese system language and English otherwise. It also sets the language of the macOS menu bar and the tray menu. | Automatic |
| Interface font, Monospace font | Custom… takes a font family or a comma-separated list. Only installed fonts work. | Default |
| Send shortcut, Newline shortcut | Enter, ShiftEnter, ⌘Enter or ⌥Enter (CtrlEnter or AltEnter on Windows). | Enter sends, ShiftEnter adds a line |
| Confirm before deleting messages | Deleting a card, or a box selection of cards, on the timeline asks you to confirm first. | Off |
| Enable $...$ inline math | Renders $…$ as a formula. Turn it off if your messages contain dollar amounts; $$…$$ still renders. |
On |
| Custom CSS | Your own stylesheet, applied as you type. Only installed fonts and data: images load in it. |
Empty |
While an input method such as Pinyin is composing, the Enter that commits the text never sends the message. Page zoom (50–200 %) is the value the zoom shortcuts change.
Local model
The local model is a small language model (Qwen3.5-0.8B) that runs on your computer and calls no provider. Its switches are on Settings → Preferences → Appearance, under Local model, and all start off.
| Switch | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name conversations automatically | Names a conversation from its first message, attachments included, and writes the subtitle of each subagent's row in the Tasks pane. A name you give yourself is kept. |
| Explain shell commands | Titles each shell command card with a one-line description. |
| Explain errors | When a tool call or command fails, titles its card with a few words on why instead of the error itself. |
| Also for subagents | Does the same for subagents and workflow steps, and names each workflow step. |
Turning on one of the first three with no build installed offers to download a build of 1.6–1.7 GB; the one suited to your computer is marked Recommended.
- Neural Engine build (Core ML): Apple silicon Macs with a Neural Engine, macOS 15 or later. Low power. Its first load, and the first after each app update, takes about two minutes.
- GPU build (MLX): Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later.
- llama.cpp build: Windows, on the GPU through Vulkan or on the CPU.
The files come from Hugging Face, or from hf-mirror.com if you accept the mirror Mework offers on systems set to Chinese for mainland China; on Windows the llama.cpp runtime also comes from GitHub and LunarG. Intel Macs can't run the local model.
Model and prompts → Manage… lets you switch between and remove builds and edit the prompts the model works from. The files are in local-model/ in the data folder.
Keyboard shortcuts
Settings → Efficiency → Keyboard shortcuts lists every app shortcut. On macOS it shows keys by their Mac symbols (⌘ ⌥ ⌃ ⇧).
| Command | macOS | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Open settings | ⌘, | Ctrl, |
| Open conversation settings | ⇧⌘, | CtrlShift, |
| Zoom in, Zoom out, Reset zoom | ⌘=, ⌘-, ⌘0 | Ctrl=, Ctrl-, Ctrl0 |
| New conversation | ⌘N | CtrlN |
| Next conversation | ⌃Tab | CtrlTab |
| Previous conversation | ⌃⇧Tab | CtrlShiftTab |
| Copy last message | ⇧⌘C | CtrlShiftC |
| Edit last user message | ⇧⌘E | CtrlShiftE |
| Toggle built-in browser | ⌘B | CtrlB |
| Close side panel | ⇧⌘W | CtrlShiftW |
Copy last message, Edit last user message and Close side panel are off until you turn them on, and Stop current run has no keys until you set some.
To change a shortcut, click its keys and press the new combination; Esc cancels. Keys are recorded by position, so your keyboard layout doesn't matter. The zoom shortcuts can be turned off but not changed. More shortcut actions → Reset to defaults restores them all. The send and newline keys are set in Appearance.
Usage statistics
Settings → Efficiency → Usage statistics shows sessions, messages, tokens and active days over All time, 30d or 7d, and on Models the tokens of each model.
Tokens count every model request you have made, subagents and native web search included. Deleting a conversation lowers Sessions and Messages, but the tokens it used stay in the totals. There is no reset.
Dependencies
Settings → System → Dependencies shows whether common command-line tools such as Git, Node.js, Python and uv are on your PATH, with what each is for and the version found. It never installs anything; Add tool adds one of your own to check.
Git matters for the Git chips and the Review pane, and Node.js, Python, uv or Bun for MCP servers started with npx, uvx or bunx. ripgrep is a search command for you or the agent to run in a shell; Mework's own search tool works the same without it.
Mework reads PATH once, when it starts (on macOS, from your login shell). After installing a tool, quit Mework and open it again; closing the window is not enough.
Updates
Settings → System → Updates shows your version and, on Windows, the edition. Mework checks for a new version only while this page is open, never in the background.
| Edition | What happens |
|---|---|
| Windows installer | Download update, then Install and restart. Your settings and data stay; Windows asks for administrator approval. |
| Windows portable | Download update saves the new zip to your Downloads folder. Quit Mework, unzip the archive over the old folder, and open Mework again. |
| MSIX | Never downloads updates itself. Installed from the Microsoft Store, the Store keeps it up to date; installed from the release page, its Updates page points you there for the next .msix. |
| macOS | The page says Mework checks for a new version but doesn't download it. Open release page takes you to the release, where you download the new .dmg. |
Installing an update quits Mework, which stops running background work.
Closing and quitting
Closing the window hides it: Mework keeps running in the Windows notification area or the macOS menu bar, and subagents, workflows, shell commands and model runs keep going. On macOS it also leaves the Dock until the window comes back. No setting changes this.
- Bring the window back: click the tray or menu-bar icon, or start Mework again.
- Quit: choose Quit Mework from the tray or menu-bar menu, or press ⌘Q on macOS. Quitting saves everything and stops all background work. If saving fails, Mework stays open and asks you to fix the storage problem and quit again.
Your data
Where it lives
| What | macOS | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Settings, conversations, attachments, usage statistics | ~/Library/Application Support/com.mework.app |
%APPDATA%\com.mework.app |
| Local model, built-in browser profiles, downloaded updates | The same folder | %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.mework.app |
| Caches | ~/Library/Caches/com.mework.app and ~/Library/WebKit/com.mework.app |
%LOCALAPPDATA%\com.mework.app |
| API keys | ~/.mework/credential-vault/, sealed by the login-keychain item Mework Safe Storage |
Windows Credential Manager, entries whose names end in com.mework.api |
| Your configuration, global memory, OpenAI Codex sign-in | ~/.mework/ |
%USERPROFILE%\.mework\ |
| A project's configuration and memory | .mework/ in the project |
.mework\ in the project |
Claude Agent's login is kept by Claude Code, not by Mework. In the first folder, document.v1.json holds your settings, conversations.v1.sqlite3 the conversations, and temporary-workspaces/ the folders of tasks in the Temporary project, each deleted with its task.
Back up
- Quit Mework. Closing the window leaves its files open.
- Copy the first folder in the table and
~/.mework. On macOS you can leave out the largelocal-model/andbrowser-tab-profiles/folders; on Windows%LOCALAPPDATA%\com.mework.appcan be left out. Mework rebuilds them. - Keys don't travel with a copy. On another computer, enter your API keys and sign in again.
A damaged settings file
If document.v1.json can't be read, Mework leaves it untouched, saves a copy beside it named document.v1.corrupt-<time>.json, and tells you why, for example that a newer version of Mework wrote it. To start over instead, press the reset button on that screen: it says that it deletes all conversations, attachments and Temporary-project folders, and Mework asks you to confirm first.
Remove everything
- Windows installer: uninstall Mework from Windows Settings → Apps and tick Delete the application data to remove both AppData folders.
- Windows portable and MSIX: remove the app, then delete both AppData folders yourself.
- macOS: move Mework to the Trash, then delete the three
com.mework.appfolders and the Mework Safe Storage item in Keychain Access.
Then delete ~/.mework (your configuration, global memory, skills and sign-ins) and, on Windows, the Credential Manager entries whose names end in com.mework.api or com.mework.app.project-import-trust.v1.