'How do I Change VSCode To Indent 4 Spaces Instead Of Default 2?

I have applied the below settings in VS Code to get 4 spaces indentation.
But always when I open a new file, it switches back to 2 in the right-bottom corner.

If I click in the right-bottom corner and change the setting back to 4,
VSCode will still change back to 2 and still apply it with the 2-space auto-indent.
Alt+Shift+F

What am I missing?

Solution 1:^[1]

Bit of an late answer. But just got the same issue solved...

Multiple things are able to control this. It also has taken me quite a bit of experimentation to get it corrected. For me point 3 below was the final trick to make it work. Before that, I noticed the editor loading with 4, but jumping back to 2 spaces. Now it stays at 4.

Some things to check:

1: VS Code configuration (Settings & Workspace, you can set these for system wide configuration or just for the current Workspace): Check whether you have set:

"editor.tabSize": 4,
"editor.insertSpaces": true,
"editor.detectIndentation": false

And language specific settings (optional):

"[javascript]": {
    "editor.tabSize": 4
},
"[typescript]": {
    "editor.tabSize": 4
}

2: Are there any Extensions that could influence the indentation -> people have reported JS-CSS-HTML to also configure the setting.

3: Is there a .editorconfig file in your workspace? If so, check the settings over there. Angular creates one for example and configures the indent_size:

# Editor configuration, see http://editorconfig.org
root = true

[*]
charset = utf-8
indent_style = space
indent_size = 4
insert_final_newline = true
trim_trailing_whitespace = true

[*.md]
max_line_length = off
trim_trailing_whitespace = false

Most answers focussed point 1 which, but for me the last step was important to make VS Code work properly.

This Stack Overflow handles all of the above in different answers: Visual Studio Code: format is not using indent settings

Solution 2:^[2]

I fixed it in the VisualStudio settings (1.31)

Go to: settings > workspace settings > Text editor

uncheck 'Detect Indentation' to stick to your default setting.

Solution 3:^[3]

Slightly different from previous answers. I had one file with the wrong indentation for its type and I wanted to correct only that file.

(If you must know: this Python script started out as text file with some queries in it. I got it from psql's -E \d echo look at the postgres schemas).

Anyway, this file was now a Python .py file, with a 2 spaces indentation. Not something that should be fixed by modifying general vscode settings.

What I did:

click on the bottom status bar spot that says 2 Spaces
choose Convert Indentation to Tabs on the dialog popup. Now it says Tab size 2
click on the status bar again where it says Tab size 2
choose Convert Indentation to Spaces. Now the dialog changes to propose indent size: 2 is selected. Pick 4 instead or any size you want.
Done

Basically there are different ways through this dialog, but if you get into tab mode and then switch back to space-based indentation, it will allow you to pick the number of spaces you want to use.

Solution 4:^[4]

In many cases, it is Prettier that causes this. In fact, it just ignores all settings listed in @Oskar's answer.

So it needs to be overridden explicitly:

"prettier.tabWidth": 4,
"prettier.useTabs": true

And then just go to your file and hit Ctrlk,Ctrld, and the correct indentation should be applied.

Solution 5:^[5]

Be careful; this extension EditorConfig for VS Code interferes with vscode tab and indentation settings. Its installed by default but it is a nightmare. Disable it will solve all your problems.

Solution 6:^[6]

Another problem I discovered with Python is that VS Code uses autopep8. No matter which setting I tweaked, VS Code seemed to ignore the 2 spaces setting. If you want 2 spaces instead of 4 - the fix is to add this to your settings.json.

    "python.formatting.autopep8Args": [
        "--indent-size=2",
        "--ignore E121"
    ]

Btw you can see your autopep8 arguments by opening the command palette (?-shift-p on mac) and entering >Python: Show Language Server Output then switching to view the "Python" log.

This seems to be a common issue. See: VS Code Python autopep8 does not honor 2 spaces hanging indentation

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	Oskar H.
Solution 2	Thomas
Solution 3
Solution 4	OfirD
Solution 5	Brian Tompsett - æ±¤èŽ±æ©
Solution 6	ubershmekel

'How do I Change VSCode To Indent 4 Spaces Instead Of Default 2?

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

Solution 3:[3]

Solution 4:[4]

Solution 5:[5]

Solution 6:[6]