How do I hide the default settings while editing settings in VS Code?

Question

When I try to open my default settings, I always see the default settings on the left hand-side. Is there a way to prevent that splitting behavior, and simply not show the default settings, but only my settings?

Answer 1

You probably accidentally set either of the following two settings to true (their default values are both false):

// Controls whether to use the split JSON editor when editing settings as JSON.
"workbench.settings.useSplitJSON": true,

// Controls whether opening settings also opens an editor showing all default settings.
"workbench.settings.openDefaultSettings": true,

You can either find and remove those lines (so they fall back to their default value of false, or explicitly set them to false).

Side-note: There's also a similar setting for editing keyboard shortcuts: workbench.settings.openDefaultKeybindings.

Answer 2

"workbench.settings.openDefaultSettings": false,