---
title: "Configuration.yaml"
description: "Configuring Home Assistant via text files."
---

While you can configure most of Home Assistant directly from the user interface under {% my configuration %}, some parts need you to edit `configuration.yaml`. This file contains integrations to be loaded along with their configurations. Throughout the documentation you will find snippets that you can add to your configuration file to enable specific functionality.

If you run into trouble while configuring Home Assistant, refer to the [configuration troubleshooting page](/docs/configuration/troubleshooting/) and the [`configuration.yaml` examples](/examples/#example-configurationyaml).

## Editing `configuration.yaml`

The easiest option to edit `configuration.yaml` is to use the {% my supervisor_addon title="Visual Studio Code add-on" addon="a0d7b954_vscode" %}. VS Code offers live syntax checking and auto-fill of various Home Assistant entities (if unavailable on your system, use {% my supervisor_addon title="File Editor add-on" addon="core_configurator" %} instead).

If you prefer to use a file editor on your computer, use the {% my supervisor_addon title="Samba add-on" addon="core_samba" %} to access the files as a network share.

_If you use Home Assistant Container, you can find `configuration.yaml` in the config folder that you mounted in your container._

_If you use Home Assistant Core, you can find `configuration.yaml` in the config folder passed to the `hass` command (default is `~/.homeasssistant`)._

## Reloading changes

Most integrations in Home Assistant that do not interact with devices or services can reload changes made to their configuration in `configuration.yaml`. To do this, go to {% my server_controls title="Configuration -> Server Control" %} and scroll down to the YAML configuration reloading section (alternative, hit "c" in the UI and search for it).

If you can't see your integration listed there, you will need to restart Home Assistant for changes to take effect.

<div class='note warning'>

  Test any changes to your configuration files from the command line check out the common tasks for [operating system](/common-tasks/os/#configuration-check), [supervised](/common-tasks/supervised/#configuration-check), [container](/common-tasks/container/#configuration-check), [core](/common-tasks/core/#configuration-check) for how to do that. Configuration changes can also be tested using the UI by navigating to {% my server_controls title="Configuration -> Server Control" %} and clicking "Check Configuration".

</div>

## Migrating to a new system

The preferred way of migrating to a new system is by {% my supervisor_snapshots title="making a backup" %}.

If you run the container or core installation methods, you will need to manually make a backup of your configuration folder. Be aware that some of the files you need start with `.`, which is hidden by default from both `ls` (in SSH), in Windows Explorer, and macOS Finder. You'll need to ensure that you're viewing all files before you copy them.