How to Change Indentation in Visual Studio Code?

In the toolbar in the bottom right corner you will see a item that looks like the following: After clicking on it you will get the option to indent using either spaces or tabs. After selecting your indent type you will then have the option to change how big an indent is. In the case of the example above, indentation is set to 4 space characters per indent. If tab is selected as your indentation character then you will see Tab Size instead of Spaces

If you want to have this apply to all files and not on an individual file basis, then override the Editor: Tab Size and Editor: Insert Spaces settings in either User Settings or Workspace Settings depending on your needs

Edit 1

To get to your user or workspace settings go to Preferences -> Settings. Verify that you are on the User or Workspace tab depending on your needs and use the search bar to locate the settings. You may also want to disable Editor: Detect Indentation as this setting will override what you set for Editor: Insert Spaces and Editor: Tab Size when it is enabled

To change the indentation based on programming language:

1. Open the Command Palette (CtrlShiftP | macOS: ⇧⌘P).
2. Type and select: Preferences: Configure Language Specific Settings... (command id: workbench.action.configureLanguageBasedSettings).
3. Select a programming language (for example TypeScript).

• If Settings menu is opened (since 1.66.0):
  4. Press → to place the cursor right beside the language filter (e.g. @lang:typescript).
  5. Type Tab Size and enter your preferred value in the text box.

• If settings.json file is opened:
  4. Add this code:

  "[typescript]": {
      "editor.tabSize": 2
  }
  

See also: VS Code Docs

You might also want to set the editor.detectIndentation to false, in addition to Elliot-J's answer.

VSCode will overwrite your editor.tabSize and editor.insertSpaces settings per file if it detects that a file has a different tab or spaces indentation pattern. You can run into this issue if you add existing files to your project, or if you add files using code generators like Angular Cli. The above setting prevents VSCode from doing this.

Code Formatting Shortcut:

VSCode on Windows - Shift + Alt + F

VSCode on MacOS - Shift + Option + F

VSCode on Ubuntu - Ctrl + Shift + I

You can also customize this shortcut using preference setting if needed.

column selection with keyboard Ctrl + Shift + Alt + Arrow

In my case "EditorConfig for VS Code" extention is overriding VSCode settings. If you have it installed, then check .editorconfig file in the root folder of the project.

Here is an example config. The "indent_size" sets the number of spaces for a tab.

# editorconfig.org
root = true

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

[*.md]
trim_trailing_whitespace = false

How to turn 4 spaces indents in all files in VS Code to 2 spaces

• Open file search
• Turn on Regular Expressions
• Enter: ( {2})(?: {2})(\b|(?!=[,'";\.:\*\\\/\{\}\[\]\(\)])) in the search field
• Enter: $1 in the replace field

How to turn 2 spaces indents in all files in VS Code to 4 spaces

• Open file search
• Turn on Regular Expressions
• Enter: ( {2})(\b|(?!=[,'";\.:\\*\\\/{\}\[\]\(\)])) in the search field
• Enter: $1$1 in the replace field

NOTE: You must turn on PERL Regex first. This is How:

• Open settings and go to the JSON file
• add the following to the JSON file "search.usePCRE2": true

Hope someone sees this.

To set all existing files and new files to space identation to 2 just put it in your settingns.json (in the root of json):

"[typescript]": {
        "editor.defaultFormatter": "vscode.typescript-language-features",
        "editor.tabSize": 2,
        "editor.insertSpaces": true,
        "editor.detectIndentation":false
 }

you can add the language type of the configuration:

"[javascript]": {
    "editor.tabSize": 2,
    "editor.insertSpaces": true,
    "editor.detectIndentation":false
} 

Simplified explanation with pictures for those that googled "Change indentation in VS Code"

Step 1: Click on Preferences > Settings

Step 2: The setting you are looking for is "Detect Indentation", begin typing that. Click on "Editor: Tab Size"

Step 3: Scroll down to "Editor: Tab Size" and type in 2 (or whatever you need).

Changes are automatically saved

Example of my changes

Setting the indentation in preferences isn't allways the solution. Most of the time the indentation is right except you happen to copy some code code from other sources or your collegue make something for you and has different settings. Then you want to just quickly convert the indentation from 2 to 4 or the other way round.

That's what this vscode extension is doing for you

Step 1: Open settings.json in vscode

Step 2: Add the lines as below for the programming language (an example is below)

For typescript and javascript

"editor.detectIndentation": false,
"[typescript]": {
        "editor.defaultFormatter": "vscode.typescript-language-features",
        "editor.tabSize": 2,
        "editor.insertSpaces": true,
        "editor.detectIndentation":false
 },
"[javascript]": {
    "editor.tabSize": 2,
    "editor.insertSpaces": true,
    "editor.detectIndentation":false
}

Problem: The accepted answer does not actually fix the indentation in the current document.

Solution: Run Format Document to re-process the document according to current (new) settings.

Problem: The HTML docs in my projects are of type "Django HTML" not "HTML" and there is no formatter available.

Solution: Switch them to syntax "HTML", format them, then switch back to "Django HTML."

Problem: The HTML formatter doesn't know how to handle Django template tags and undoes much of my carefully applied nesting.

Solution: Install the Indent 4-2 extension, which performs indentation strictly, without regard to the current language syntax (which is what I want in this case).

I wanted to change the indentation of my existing HTML file from 4 spaces to 2 spaces.

I clicked the 'Spaces: 4' button in the status bar and changed them to two in the next dialog box.

I use 'vim' extension. I don't how to re-indent without vim

To re-indent my current file, I used this:

gg

=

G

Adding on: yes, you can use the bottom-right UI to configure the space settings. But if you have existing code that's not formatted to the new spacing, then you can right-click anywhere within the file and click Format Document. Took me a while to figure this out until I stumbled on this issue.

Format Document menu

For me it was docs-markdown andDocs Authoring Pack. Microsoft's many modules messing with each other yet again! Disabled the extensions and now good to go again 😀

The Problem of auto deintending is caused due to a checkbox being active in the settings of VSCode. Follow these steps:

1. goto preferences

2. goto settings

3. search 'editor:trim auto whitespace'

4. Uncheck The box

The following search-and-replace regex changes the number of spaces per indentation level from 4 to 2 in existing files. It's relatively easy to understand, reliable, and doesn't require installing anything.