Settings and app data

Store and retrieve settings

UWP applications can easily store simple settings in a key/value store locally or even in the cloud so your application or a game can share settings between different user’s devices.

Following data types can be used for settings:

• UInt8, Int16, UInt16, Int32, UInt32, Int64, UInt64, Single, Double
• Boolean
• Char16, String
• DateTime, TimeSpan
• GUID, Point, Size, Rect

Start by retrieving the local and/or roaming data container.

Windows.Storage.ApplicationDataContainer localSettings = Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.LocalSettings;
Windows.Storage.ApplicationDataContainer roamingSettings = Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.RoamingSettings;

To create or write a setting, use ApplicationDataContainer.Values property to access the settings in the data container. For example lets create a local setting named FontSize with an int value 10 and roaming setting Username with a string value Bob.

localSettings.Values["FontSize"] = 10;
roamingSettings.Values["Username"] = "Bob";

To retrieve the setting, use the same ApplicationDataContainer.Values property that you used to create the setting.

int fontSize = localSettings["FontSize"];
string username = roamingSettings["Username"];

Good practice is to check if a setting exists before retrieving it.

if (localSettings.Values.ContainsKey("FontSize"))
    int fontSize = localSettings["FontSize"];

if (roamingSettings.Values.ContainsKey("Username"))
    string username = roamingSettings["Username"];

Roaming settings have size quota. Use RoamingStorageQuota property go get it.

You can find more about settings, their limits and code examples on MSDN.

Save data to application cache

The ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder api allows us to get access to the application cache :

var file = await ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.CreateFileAsync("myFile.dat", CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting);

The FileIO class contains a set of utility methods to easily add data to a file :

await FileIO.WriteBytesAsync(file, array);
await FileIO.AppendTextAsync(file, "text");
await FileIO.WriteBufferAsync(file, iBuffer);