Change which app, source or local profile the tool uses, and check the settings before a pull or agent session. Public configuration selects the app and data paths; OAuth tokens remain in the system keyring. This reference gives the accepted keys and their defaults.

Set a value with zm config set <key> <value> and see them all with zm config show.

Key	Meaning
zoom.client_id	Public Client ID of the existing or new app; unset by default, required for API login
account.profile	Local label for stored meetings; unset by default, required for store operations
source	Where meetings sync and watch read from: api (default) or files
files.folder	Transcript folder for file-source pull/watch; unset by default
files.timezone	the IANA zone of downloaded transcript filenames, for example Europe/Madrid; default UTC

Check zm config show after editing. Switching account.profile does not switch the authenticated Zoom user. Changing the client ID selects a different keyring entry, so authorize that app before using its API. ZOOM_CLIENT_ID is not a runtime setting for the installed zm command; use zm config set zoom.client_id rather than an environment variable copied from a development probe.

The file stores these settings as client_id, files_folder, files_timezone, account_profile and source. JSON files must use these snake_case keys. Legacy camelCase files are refused and are not rewritten. Before upgrading an older file, rename clientId to client_id, filesFolder to files_folder, filesTimezone to files_timezone and accountProfile to account_profile. Preserve their values and private file permissions. The command setting selector zoom.clientId remains an alias for zoom.client_id; it is not a supported JSON file key.

A malformed config still allows --help and --version; config commands report the error.

zm config set creates and updates config.json for you. It contains public settings, not Zoom access tokens; you do not download this file from Marketplace. zm doctor --json reports its actual path without checking the saved OAuth session.

Platform	Default public configuration
Linux and macOS	~/.config/zm/config.json, or the zm directory under XDG_CONFIG_HOME
Windows	%APPDATA%\zm\Config\config.json
Explicit override	config.json inside ZM_CONFIG_DIR

Older macOS layouts are no longer moved automatically; doctor shows the path actually in use. Keep public app settings separate from keyring tokens and the shared meeting database.

Variable	Effect
ZM_CONFIG_DIR	overrides the configuration directory; changing it also changes the keyring service used for login
MESSAGING_STORE	selects an explicit shared database path for import, pull, watch, meeting reads and MCP reads
OPENAI_API_KEY	used by an explicitly selected OpenAI embedding endpoint (topic search)

Directories otherwise follow the platform convention. The default shared database is wirecat.db (where meetings are stored). Use the same environment in your terminal and MCP entry; otherwise they can read different profiles or stores. Continue with sessions to verify authorization separately from these public settings.