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Preferences Window

The Preferences Window

Max remembers many of your working preferences by storing settings each time you quit the application. The first time you use Max, a folder is created that contains many application-specific files. In that folder, the preference file is named maxpreferences.maxpref.

On Macintosh, this file can be found in the ~/Library folder:

~/Library/Application Support/Cycling '74/Max 8/Settings/maxpreferences.maxpref

On Windows, you will have to enable the "Show hidden files, folders, or drives" view option in the Windows Explorer. The file's location varies according to the name of the user logged in:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Cycling '74\Max 8\Settings\maxpreferences.maxpref

The Settings folder is also where Max stores settings you have chosen in the MIDI setup and file preferences windows, as well as the current settings of the Options menu.

Viewing the Preferences Window

  • Choose Preferences from the Max menu (Macintosh) or the Options menu (Windows) to show the Preferences Window.


The preferences are divided into categories, each of which is associated with a category divider in the Preferences Window. Each divider contains a disclosure triangle that you can click to hide or reveal the attributes associated with the divider.

The top of the Preferences Window has four view selector tabs that allow you to view subsets of preferences that you will probably use often in addition to viewing the entire contents of the window.

Basic shows a subset of the commonly accessed preferences, organized by category.

Color shows a subset of settings associated with colors used in the patching environment.

Recent shows categories that you have recently edited for Max.

All shows all of the preferences in a single pane.

The Audio category of the Preferences Window shows the settings associated with using the Plug-in support for Max.

The Console category of the Preferences Window shows the parameters you can use to set up the features of the Max Console Window.

The Files and Folders category of the Preferences Window lets you set default folder locations for the location of your Max for Live devices, a default folder location for Max Projects, and the name of the default Patcher Template.

The Interface category of the Preferences Window shows some settings related to how the Max interface works (e.g., truncating floating point numbers automatically).

The Jitter category of the Preferences Window shows some settings related to how the Jitter works (e.g., the video engine used).

The Language category lists the currently available language choices.

The Mixer category lets you set preferences for the behavior of the Mixer engine features of Max.

The Patching category of the Preferences Window contains a listing of parameters related to Max's behavior as you patch (e.g. segmented patch cords,enabling Assistance in a patcher, etc.), and settings that control how the Max interface responds to you (e.g., auto fix width, autocompletion, etc.)

The Scheduler category of the Preferences Window shows the parameters you can use when tuning the performance of Max on your system.

About the Window’s columns:

The Preferences Window consists of two columns:

The Setting column has the name or a description of each object setting

The Value column displays the current value associated with each setting


Changing the Preferences Window view

  • Click on a view selector in the Preferences Window to show a subset of all the settings. To return to the original organization of settings, click on the All tab.
  • Click on the disclosure triangle for a preferences category to hide or reveal the preferences.

Getting information about an Inspector setting

  • Position your cursor over the Setting column of any row in the window to see the setting's info button. Hover over the button to see a brief description of the setting.


Changing the value of a Setting

  • Click in the Value column for a Setting row to select the value you want to change
  • If the value column contains a check box, click in the box to toggle the value
  • If the value column has a set of arrows on the right, it is a pop-up menu. Click in the Value column, choose a setting from the pop-up menu, and release.
  • If the value column contains a color display, click in the box to show the color palette drop-down menu. You can use the swatch to set colors.
  • If the value column contains ints, floats, messages, or lists, double-click in the box to show a cursor and text box. You can type values into the text box and type a carriage return to set the values.

Changing the attribute list order

  • Click on a Setting column. The column will be selected an an arrow will appear on the right side of the column header.
  • Click on the arrow to re-sort the contents for each category of the object Inspector in alphabetical order.
  • Click on the left-hand column header to restore the original “default” listing order for all Settings.

See Also

Name Description
Technical Notes Technical Notes
The Max Environment The Max Environment