Where Celas Studio keeps its files
Every file Celas Studio writes outside your projects: settings, workspaces, brushes, shortcuts, crash reports and auto-saves, and where each one lives per platform.
Celas Studio keeps two separate sets of files on disk: an app data folder for everything you can change from Preferences and the panels, and a smaller, separate folder for your licence and account so they survive a reinstall.
The app data folder
| Platform | Location |
|---|---|
| Windows | Next to celasstudio.exe, in the folder you installed to |
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/Fruzai/CelasStudio/ |
| Linux | $XDG_DATA_HOME/Fruzai/CelasStudio/, or ~/.local/share/Fruzai/CelasStudio/ if that variable is not set |
| File / folder | What it holds |
|---|---|
| imgui.ini | Dock layout and window positions |
| celaskanvas_ui.cfg | Panel visibility, viewport display options, tool options, export dialog settings, Preferences and the Recent Projects list |
| shortcuts.cfg | Every keyboard shortcut binding |
| celasstudio_brushes.cbrushset | Your custom brush presets |
| swatches_library.json | Your Swatches colour library: every category, colour and gradient |
| celaskanvas_swatches.cfg | How the Swatches panel is displaying that library: view mode, chip size, Show Name, active category |
| celaskanvas_color.cfg | Color panel state |
| workspaces/ folder | One .ini file per workspace you saved with Window ▸ Workspace ▸ Save Workspace…, named after it |
| tips/*.png | Brush tips you saved with Save Selection as Brush Tip, plus any PNG you drop into this folder yourself |
| crash-report.txt | The plain-text report from the last crash, if one has not been sent yet |
| client-id.txt | An anonymous id used only to attribute crash reports, not a device fingerprint |
One more file lives next to your project rather than in the app data folder: an Auto-Save recovery copy, if you have turned Auto-Save on, is written as your project's file name with .autosave.cls added, beside the real project file. It is a separate file. Auto-Save never touches your actual project and never clears its unsaved-changes marker. A document that has never been saved has no project folder to sit in, so its copy goes into the app data folder as untitled-N.autosave.cls; a crash-time rescue copy lands there as rescued.cls.
Licence and account: a different folder
Your licence and your celas.studio sign-in are stored apart from the rest of the settings, specifically so they are not lost if you move, reinstall, or update the app in place.
| Platform | Location |
|---|---|
| Windows | %LOCALAPPDATA%\CelasKanvasStudio\ |
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/CelasKanvasStudio/ |
| Linux | $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/CelasKanvasStudio/, or ~/.config/CelasKanvasStudio/ if that variable is not set |
Inside: license.dat holds your licence key and its cached status, and auth.json holds your celas.studio sign-in token and profile. On Windows, a licence saved by an older build at the install folder is still read for compatibility.
Resetting a file safely
Close Celas Studio first: every file here is written on a normal exit or on save, so editing or deleting one while the app is open just gets overwritten.
- Panel layout or Preferences gone wrong: delete celaskanvas_ui.cfg (and imgui.ini if the dock layout itself is the problem). Both are rebuilt with defaults on the next launch.
- Shortcuts: the safer path is inside the app (Preferences ▸ Shortcuts ▸ Reset All to Defaults) which needs no restart. Deleting shortcuts.cfg by hand has the same effect.
- A workspace you no longer want: right-click it under Window ▸ Workspace and choose Delete, which asks first and names the workspace, or remove its .ini from the workspaces folder directly, which does not ask. Neither can be undone.
- Custom brushes: celasstudio_brushes.cbrushset is the working copy. Export Brush Set… on the Brushes panel library menu writes a backup you can import again, so use that before you delete anything you want back.
- Swatches: use the Swatches panel menu ▸ Export first to save a .json backup, since deleting swatches_library.json clears the library with nothing to restore it from inside the app.
- A stuck or unwanted auto-save: delete the .autosave.cls file next to the project, or answer Discard Them in the recovery prompt at startup. It is only ever a recovery copy, so removing it cannot affect the real project file.