# 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 work on a free copy holding two profiles or fewer — see **On a free copy** below for the one book that is refused. * **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 **two profiles**, and switching between them needs no licence: the Profiles tab, the switcher in the title bar, the tray's Profile submenu, a `Switch profile` shortcut, a leader step and **Next profile** / **Previous profile** all work. What a free copy is refused is the **third** — adding one, not moving between the two it has. The button says so rather than failing, and nothing is written. **A book that already holds more than two is the case to know about**, and it is the lapsed-Pro shape rather than the ordinary free one: profiles made under Pro, and then the subscription ends. While the book is over the cap, *every* way of switching is refused and you stay in whichever profile was live at that moment. 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 live row carries none: it is not locked, it is the one you are in. 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. The other way back costs nothing: **remove rows until two or fewer are left** and switching works again, which is a free copy claiming the two the plan runs. Removing leaves every folder where it is, so neither route loses anything. ### 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. That is the state a fresh install is in, whatever the plan. * **On a book over the free cap they say that instead**, 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. The free plan runs two profiles; [Pro](/pro) runs as many as you like. **Create new profile** and **Duplicate** are what a free copy at two is refused, and both say so rather than failing. ## Moving one somewhere else [#moving-one-somewhere-else] A profile is a complete set of automations, so carrying one to another Mac or handing it to somebody is a [backup](/features/backup): tick what you want, write the file, and restore it at the other end. The restore names every profile the file carries and says which of them this Mac already has before it writes anything. ## Upgrading, and going back [#upgrading-and-going-back] **Upgrading** moves the settings you already had into a profile of their own the first time Lumi runs, and keeps a copy of what it started from. 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 its settings where they used to be, does not find them, and opens as though it were newly installed — the onboarding tour, and none of your shortcuts. **Nothing is lost:** everything is still where the upgrade put it, your licence and history are untouched, and upgrading again brings the lot back exactly as it was. If you go back, work on the old build for a while, and then upgrade, Lumi notices the settings that build left behind and offers to **adopt** them as a profile — in **General → Advanced**. That offer is not gated on Pro: it is your own work being recovered, not a new workspace. It is bounded, though — adopting may take a free copy **one** profile past the cap, and a second adoption is refused with the ordinary sentence, so the exemption cannot be used as a way round the limit.